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Abolitionist’s Library....No. 1. 



THU 

DESPOTISM OF FREEDOM; 

OR THE 

TYRANNY AND CRUELTY 


or 

AMERICAN REPUBLICAN SLAVE-MASTERS, 

> i / 


SHOWN TO BE THE WORST IN THE WORLD 5 

IN A 

SPEECH, 

DELIVERED AT THE FIRST ANNIVERSARY OF THE 

r 

NEW ENGLAND ANTI-SLAYERY SOCIETY, 1^3. 


BY DAVID L. CHILD, 

7 

COUNSELLOR AT LAW. 


BOSTON: 

PUBLISHED BY THE BOSTON YOUNG MEN’S ANTI-SLAVERY ASSOCIA¬ 
TION, FOR THE DIFFUSION OF TRUTH. 


1833 . 






. C6'Z9 


^A«-Vw, o<T'(o3- 


* 3) 4 i ^ . 

W tn-CUdUL 4 4 

PUBLISHERS’ ADVERTISEMENT, 


This pamphlet is the first number of a series of publica¬ 
tions, entitled the Abolitionist’s Library. We shall 
continue the series as fast as our means will allow. We 
would respectfully invite the friends of universal freedom, 
to aid in this attempt to diffuse truth on this important and 
hitherto neglected subject. We shall aim to set the plain 
and simple truth fairly before the public. In doing this, 
we shall take care to give no offence to any who are wil¬ 
ling to have the mask torn off from this foul blot on our 
national character. If any error shall find its way into any 
of our publications, we call upon all men, whether friends 
or foes, to point it out, and it shall be corrected. While 
the people of the old world are going on so nobly in the 
work pf reform, it becomes the republicans of America to 
awalfe from their slumber, and to inquire if they can do 
any thing in so noble a work. While our government pro¬ 
fesses to stand on the basis that “ all men are born free and 
equal,” we are excluding TWO MILLIONS of Ameri¬ 
cans, not only from the privileges of freemen, but from the 
rights of men. We shall never cease our opposition to this 
system, till this glaring absurdity and humiliating disgrace 
shall have passed away; and the natural rights of every 
inhabitant of this land shall be acknowledged and held 
sacred. 

THE PUBLISHING COMMITTEE. 


PRESS OF FORD AND DAMREEL. 




PREFACE. 




In this pamphlet, the reader will find the outline of a comparison 
betwixt American and other slavery. It is but an outline, and may, 
and doubtless will be, filled up at another time, or by another 
hand. If the question, whether American Slavery is or is not 
the w T orst in the known world, be not settled by the laws and the facts 
here adduced, it is necessary and proper that the inquiry should be 
prosecuted further, until this question shall be settled one way or the 
other. If the affirmative of the proposition be, as we fully believe, 
true, it cannot fail to arouse the attention and the sympathy of a great 
majority of the American people. If it be not true, then, for the hon¬ 
or of the republic, it ought to be shown to be false. To that result I 
would-gladly have been conducted, if it had been possible, instead of 
the one which I have stated in the resolution, forming the subject 
of the speech. 

I have met with many gentlemen, including planters, merchants, 
masters and owners of vessels, supercargoes and seamen, who have 
seen slavery in the Southern States and in the West Indies; and they 
all say that the treatment of slaves and of colored freemen in the 
United States, is far more cruel than they have seen elsewhere. 

It is a standing argument with those, who differ from me, that the 
increase of slave population in the United States is greater than in the 
British West Indies, in some of which, in fact, there has been a regu¬ 
lar decrease. There are several causes other .than personal treatment, 
which account for this phenomenon. 


IV 


/ 1. The sugar planting is more destructive to life than cotton and 

rice. This business is comparatively new and limited in the United 
States, and has not, as yet, affected very sensibly the increase of 
slaves. 

2. Emancipation has been less discountenanced by the West In¬ 
dian communities, and it has never been obstructed by law ; but, so far 
as there has been any law upon the subject, always promoted. ' 

3. The slaves in the greater part of the Southern States have, from 
the necessity of the seasons, something like a respite in winter, while 
in the West Indies they work equally hard all the year round. 

4. I am indebted to the Rev. Mr. Godwin, an able English lectur¬ 
er, for the greatest principle which assists to solve the difficulty, and 
answer the argument above mentioned. Mr. Godwin says, that the 
whites can increase the blacks, but the blacks can never increase the 
whites! The whole intermediate class is thrown into the colored scale. 
Now, this intermediate class will be greater or less, according as the 
number of whites, who indulge in promiscuous intercourse, is greater 
or less. In the West Indies, the whites on the -plantations are proba¬ 
bly one to fifty blacks. In the most slave States of the United States, 
the whites are nearly equal to the blacks. In South Carolina, the ex¬ 
cess of slaves over the free population, is 50,000. In Louisiana, 
also, the slave population predominates a trifle. In all the other 
States the free are the most numerous. Suppose, then, for illustration, 
that there are in a slave State, five white couples, five black, and five 
black and white. This last is a small estimate. But which class do 
the whoU of their descendants go to increase ? 


DESPOTISM OF FREEDOM. 


Mr. David L. Child proposed the following resolution, 
which was seconded by Mr. Robert B. Hall : 

Resolved, That the free People of Color and Slaves, in this land of 
Liberty and Law, have less liberty, and are less protected by law, than 
in any other part of the world. 

SPEECH. 

Mr. Child commenced by saying that if the malignant 
cholera had “ rewards” to bestow, it would have friends and ad¬ 
mirers ; but while the Saviour of men was despised, and per¬ 
secuted, there was none so poor as to do him reverence ;—none 
so low but that to have acknowledged his acquaintance, would 
have made them lower. Knowing from history and observation 
that these things were so, he had not come forward, on this 
occasion, at the invitation of the Anti-Slavery Society, without 
being fully aware how little favor, or rather how great invidi¬ 
ousness he was about to provoke, even from persons whose 
approbation he highly valued. But this was not the only 
adverse circumstance with which he who undertakes to plead 
the cause of the despised and persecuted Africans had to con¬ 
tend. He must not only forego that sweet breath of popularity, 
which rewards so many patriots for persuading the people that 
they are “ the most enlightened and virtuous upon earthbut 
he must also encounter positive personal danger. He saw in 
this assembly a man whose character was without reproach ; 
whose life had been blameless from his youth up; a man who 
had committed no offence against the laws of this Common¬ 
wealth, who was not even accused of committing any ; a man 
in the peaceable and industrious pursuit of a trade which was 
deemed so important to the .well-being of the Commonwealth 
as to be the only one protected by name in our Constitu- 
1 * 



6 


DANGERS OF THE SUBJECT. 


6 


tion :* * * § ■—an<l yet a price had been set upon that man’s head ! 

A State of this Union, by *a deliberate and formal act of legisla¬ 
tion, had held out an enticement to every caitiff in the country, 
or within the reach of its presses, to commit a most heinous 
breach of the peace of this Commonwealth; to insult her 
undoubted constitutional sovereignty; to trample on the suprem¬ 
acy of her laws, to shed the innocent blood of her sons ! 
Who could tell where and when this audacious infraction of 
the law of nations and of the Constitution of the United 
Statesf would stop, or whither it would go 1 No man who 
should dare to say or to write and print that selling and holding 
human beings in bondage, scourging and killing them as the 
anger and caprice of a tyrant might dictate, were contrary to 
justice, humanity, to republican principles, and the laws of God, 
would in future be safe. Any citizen who should venture to 
express his honest convictions upon “ the greatest of all public 
questions”! might be honored by the State of Georgia with the 
repetition of her insolent and murderous act. Who next was 
to be let blood, none could tell. It might be our Governor; 
and if it were, it would not be more atrocious, though certainly „ 
more manly, than what had already been done. It was handed 
down as a saying of the lawgiver and chief magistrate^ of an 
ancient Republic, that “ that was the best form of government 
where an injury done to the meanest citizen, was esteemed an 
injury to the whole state and an eloquent and profound 
modern|| had declared of law, that “ her seat is the bosom of 
God that “ all things on earth do her homage, the very least 


* The liberty of the press is essential to the security of freedom in a 
state ; it ought not therefore to be restrained in this Commonwealth. 

Constitution , Massachusetts Bill of Rights, Art. 16. 

t A person charged in any State with treason, felony or other crime, 
who shall flee from justice, and be found in another State, shall, on de¬ 
mand of the executive authority of the State from which he fled , be 
delivered up to be removed to the State having jurisdiction of the 
crime. Constitution of the United States, Art. 4, Sec. 2. 

The above provision prescribes the only mode, and defines the only 
causes of seeking on the part of one state to obtain possession of the 
person of any freeman in another state. If Mr. Garrison has not been 
“ charged with treason, felony or other crime” in Georgia and “ fled” 
therefrom, then Georgia has no right by the compact to touch him in 
any manner. But it could never be forgotten in what manner she has 
proceeded although the object were constitutional and proper. 

t Speech of Sir James Mackintosh at the meeting of the London 
Anti-Slavery Society, April 23, 1831. 

§ Solon. 

|| Hooker's Laics of Ecclesiastical Polity, Preface. 



1 


BRIBE FOR ABDUCTION. 


7 


as feeling her care, and the greatest as not exempted from her 
power.” If the government and laws of Massachusetts 
were to be tried by these acknowledged tests, how mortifying 
must the result be ? Perhaps it would have been well for the 
honor of the State, and the future safety of the citizens, if the 
legislature of Georgia had been pleased to select a more impor¬ 
tant victim. If it had happened to be His Excellency, instead 
of a humble printer ; if it had been the strong and the armed 
instead of the weak and the unarmed, something might have 
been heard about it in the high places of power before the lapse 
of a year and a half ! Something might then have been thought 
to be due to the violated peace and insulted dignity of Massa¬ 
chusetts ! The Governor voluntarily repaired to Salem on the 
news of the murder there,* and issued his proclamation offering, 
in the name and in behalf of the Commonwealth, $1000, for 
the apprehension of the murderer. Can any one tell why it 
should be deemed so important to punish murder done, but of 
none at all to prevent murder intended ? 

He had said that the act of Georgia was a violation of the 
law of nations. There was in his mind no doubt upon this 
point. If she had no right to send her “ guard” to seize, man¬ 
acle and murder the citizens of Massachusetts, much less had 
she a right to move and instigate to it by an enormous public 
bribe, the army of kidnappers and villains who are spread over 
the face of this country, and for “ a suitable reward” would cut 
ar throat, or subvert a constitution ! f 

And what were the people doing while this apathy reigned 
among their rulers ? A large portion were busy in stirring up 
the nation to avenge the abduction and murder of William 
Morgan , in which few comparatively could have been con¬ 
cerned, and in which it was to be hoped that very few were 
concerned ; but the abduction and murder of William Lloyd 
Garrison , conspired by a whole State, and in momentary dan¬ 
ger of being executed, obtained none of their sympathy or 
attention ! Was a living citizen of less importance than a 
dead stranger ? It was the doctrine of our law, that he who 
knowingly permits a crime to be committed is equally guilty 
with the contriver and perpetrator. If, then, we should permit 
our fellow-citizen, after more than a year’s warning of the 


* The murder of Joseph White, Esq., a wealthy citizen of Salem, 
Mass., by Richard Crowninshield and others. 

t It is an established principle of the law of nations that an injury 
threatened , is as much a violation of the rights of a state, and a cause 
of war, as an injury done .— Vattel,p. 453. 



8 


PREJUDICE AGAINST COLOR. 


8 


designs upon him, to be kidnapped and murdered, as he assu¬ 
redly would be, if once in the power of the “ tyrants who batter 
at his peace,” how great would be our guilt and infamy ! 

The hideous and afflicting fact announced in the resolution, 
which he had the honor to submit, was now to be proved. If 
he should succeed in making it manifest to all, let none blame 
him for publicly stating it, and invoking to it the attention of 
the country. If he failed, he would, for the honor of the 
Republic and of human nature, heartily rejoice. 

The most obvious and universal of those peculiar hardships 
under which the colored race labor, in this country, (continued 
Mr. Child) is the inveterate, cruel, and, I will add, ferocious 
prejudice against their skins ; or rather, to put the guilt where 
it belongs, the reticle of their skins, because it is well known 
that their cuticle is every bit as white as our own. No indus¬ 
try, no usefulness, no integrity, no intellectual attainments, 
nor moral rectitude, had ever yet been able, in the eyes of us 
republican judges, to atone for the enormous guilt of a reticle, 
“ not colored as our own.” The considerations of our common 
origin and end, even the sacred axioms and solemn monitions 
of God’s own word, that he made of one blood all the nations 
of men, and will dissolve them all in one common dust, cannot 
shake that stubborn prejudice, which steels the bosoms of 
Americans to the oppressions and complaints of the poor negro. 

This illiberal and unchristian prejudice does not exist in 
the same degree in any other country. In Spain and Portugal, 
and their colonies, and in Brazil, it scarcely exists at all. 
Brazil contains more negro slaves than any other nation ; and 
if the prejudice were founded in reason and nature, it ought 
to be stronger there than elsewhere, because in every nook 
and corner of the empire, the African hue is associated with 
servitude and degradation ; and yet colored men are eligible 
to, and do occupy the highest stations ; they command armies, 
plead causes, heal the sick, and minister at the altar. Colored 
pastors are numerous, and their flocks embrace both white 
and black. 

A few years ago, a colored military officer arrived in Boston 
from Brazil. Within ten days after his arrival, he was ordered 
from his lodgings, in Washington Street, and the society of 
six intelligent companions who came with him, and was obliged 
to take shelter in a mean apartment of a sailor boarding-house, 
because some aspiring young gentlemen of “ the most enlight¬ 
ened of nations” declared that if “ the niggur” remained, 
they would not. Yet “ the niggur” was an exile by reason of 


9 


PREJUDICE AGAINST COLOR. 


9 


his republican principles, and of his efforts to establish a free 
government for his country. Subsequently the same “ niggur” 
was one of the first and most generous in affording assistance 
to Major Hordynski, the noble Polander, to whom we are 
indebted for the History of the Polish Revolution. In the 
French colonies the prejudice exists, but is not violent; and 
it may be inferred from well known facts, that it never was 
strong in France. Mirabeau, Lafayette, and many other illus¬ 
trious Frenchmen, are described as associating on terms of 
equality and friendship with intelligent and respectable ne¬ 
groes.* Napoleon advanced a brave colored soldier through 
the subordinate grades to the rank of Major General, and 
named him “ the Horatius Codes of the Tyrols.” A French 
gentleman, lately on his travels in the United States, was on 
board a steamboat, and he lighted his cigar by a negro’s, 
accosting him politely for that purpose. The gentleman ob¬ 
served looks of surprise and aversion in the white passengers, 
and a shrinking movement at his approach. Upon inquiry, He 
learned that the igniting of his cigar by a negro’s, had discom¬ 
posed the whole company ! 

The cold regions of Russia afford a warmth of heart in this 
respect which may shame us. A favorite engineer and general 
of Peter the Great was a black. He arrived at eminent dis¬ 
tinction, and was decorated with an order of knighthood. His 
son was the founder of the city of Cherson.f It is a familiar 
fact, that, in Turkey, color creates no obstacle in the way of 
merit. 

In England, where the customs and habits most resemble 
our own, all distinction is quite done away. I have seen col¬ 
ored men at the chess-board, at the card-table, at feasts, at 
churches, at hotels, and arm-in-arm in the streets, with respect¬ 
able white men of all ranks. Even in the W. I. Colonies, 
where cruel and wicked prejudice still survives, white men 
can sit by the side of black legislators, jurors, and members of 
the bar. 

Was such a phenomenon ever seen in this Republic ? If it 
had been, we should doubtless have heard of it. It would 
have made as much noise as nullification. Thousands of 
eyes would have been enlarged and hands held up in amaze¬ 
ment, which would never have been relaxed except in a general 


* See Clarksons account of his visit to Paris, History of the Abolition 
of the African Slave Trade, vol. 2, p. 105. 

t General Dumas. See Gregoire's Inquiryinto the Intellectual and 
Moral Faculties and Literature of JVegroes, p. 100. 




10 


PREJUDICE AGAINST COLOR. 


10 


and unextinguishable titter of laughter. How small and con¬ 
temptible must we appear in the eyes of enlightened and 
impartial foreigners! How worse than contemptible in the 
sight of God ! Can a colored person gain access to our hotels'? 
Let the inhospitable treatment, which educated and gentle¬ 
manly strangers from Hayti have repeatedly received in our 
land, answer the question. Can they sit at our tables ? We 
exclude them from the table of the Lord ! * 

A lady has related to me an anecdote, since I came into this 
Hall, which strongly illustrates the state of feeling among us. 
The President of this Society delivered a discourse, a few 
weeks ago, in a Unitarian church of this city :—and I fake this 
opportunity to express my gratitude to the high-minded clergy¬ 
man, who opened his pulpit on that occasion. - Sometime 
afterwards, in making his parochial visits, he called upon a 
family, who presently began to apologize for their absence 
from meeting. And what do you suppose was the cause of 
it ? They said that they approached their pew on the Sunday 
of the Anti-Slavery discourse, and, to their astonishment and 
horror, they found it occupied by—what do you guess?—a 
Tiger? No. Boa Constrictor? No. Something worse than 
either. Something whose presence pollutes more surely, than 
the jaws'of wild monsters destroy—in short, they found it oc¬ 
cupied by colored people, whom the sexton had conducted 
there ! They said they could not bear the thought of sitting in 
it again; and had abandoned it, and bought another. 

A recent instance of a less harmless and most disgraceful 
character, was stated in the Liberator of last week. A theo¬ 
logical student was expelled for the crime of color , by a vote 
of his fellow-students, from the Wesleyan University of Mid¬ 
dletown, Connecticut. How painful, how humiliating is the 
contrast between the conduct of these professed followers of 
Wesley, in this boasted land of light and liberty, and of their 
brethren in the land of monarchy and darkness—the abused 
and belittled Great Britain. There , Methodist ministers are 
daily encountering obloquy, stripes, conflagration and death, in 
order to teach the negro, and to pour consolation into his 
soul !f Here —alas, I cannot bear to finish the parallel. Be 
the face of my country veiled in this picture ! 


* We are happy to say that we have heard of several gratifying ex¬ 
ceptions, but we believe the rule to be as stated in the text. 

t See the account of the murder of the Rev. Mr. Smith by the plan¬ 
ters, and of the destruction of the Chapels in the British Colonies. 

London Anti-Slavery Reporter , passim* 



11 


PREJUDICE AGAINST COLOR. 


11 


Some years ago, there was in Boston a colored man named 
Sanders—Prince Sanders. He was a man of very respectable 
attainments and of active benevolence. He wrote and pub¬ 
lished a good many books and essays, and took a peculiar 
interest in the affairs of Hayti, at a time when the destiny of 
that interesting country, was quite doubtful. To the honor 
of Bostonians be it said, this useful and worthy character 
was much and generally respected by them. He was even 
received on a hospitable and familiar footing at the houses of 
many of the most respectable of our citizens. Subsequently, 
Mr. Sanders visited England, and resided in London, where 
he was a marked man, greatly noticed and favored by the most 
eminent persons in church and state. If in Boston some little 
rills of regard had set towards him, in London it was a strong 
and swelling tide. . While he remained there, the family of a 
wealthy Yankee took up their abode for a winter at the West 
End. Mr. Sanders was acquainted with them, and he called 
to see them on one morning at breakfast time,—a thing not 
unusual, I believe, in London. The lady entered cheerfully 
into a variety of chat, continuing, in the mean time, though 
not with quite her customary ease, to dispense the coffee. After 
the family had risen from the table, she said, as if by a sudden 
«tart of recollection, “ Perhaps you have not breakfasted, Mr. 
Sanders ? Wont you let me pour you out a cup of coffee ?” 
Mr. Sanders was a keen observer. He had seen all that had 
passed—and a great deal that had not passed ; and, with a nat¬ 
ural feeling of triumph, but with perfect good temper, he 
answered, “ I thank you, Madam ; I am engaged to breakfast 
with the Prince Regent.” And so indeed he w'as. 

We find therefore that the prejudice against color exists in 
no other country to the same extent as it does in our own ; we 
find that in places where the causes (if cause can be predicated 
of it) are the strongest, it does not exist at all; we find it con¬ 
demned by the Divine Law. Where then shall this prejudice, 
this miserable outlaw from the moral universe, find a refuge ? 
Shall it take shelter under the law of Nature ? Can it lie under 
any folding of the infant heart 1 Do your children refuse the 
tender cares of their nurses ? Do their spirits, pure from the 
Maker, find that love and kindness have color ? Do they not 
nestle in any bosom which these inhabit ? Except ye become as 
little children, ye shall notenter into the Kingdom of Heaven ! 

The sting of oppression acquires a new venom in an atmos¬ 
phere of freedom. The condition of slaves in the United 
States of America, consists of two component parts, the labor 


12 PECULIAR CRIMINALITY OF AMERICAN SLAVERY. 12 

of Sisyphus and the torment of Tantalus. Other countries 
inflict the ceaseless and fruitless labor of the former, but 
we add thereto the perpetual exacerbation of the latter. The 
bitterness of slavery is aggravated by beholding above the 
sweet and golden fruits of the tree of liberty, which slaves 
can never touch, and which free colored men find turned to 
ashes in their mouths. There can be no doubt that this cir¬ 
cumstance increases very materially the sufferings of colored 
men in this country, and the guilt of whites. Mrs. Trollop, 
whose book I admire for the truth and energy with which 
it states the crying sin of America, has an excellent passage 
upon the mortifying contrast which our professions and prac¬ 
tice present. She says: 

“It is impossible for any mind of common honesty not to 
be revolted by the contradictions in their principles and prac¬ 
tice. They inveigh against the governments of Europe because, 
as they say, they favor the powerful, and oppress the weak. 
You may hear this declaimed upon in Congress, roared out in 
taverns, discussed in every drawing-room, satirized upon the 
stage, nay, even anathematized from the pulpit. Listen to it, 
and then look .at them at home ; you will see them with one 
hand hoisting the cap of liberty, and with the other flogging 
their slaves; you will see them one hour lecturing the mob on 
the indefeasible rights of man, and the next driving from their 
homes the children of the soil, whom they have bound them¬ 
selves to protect by the most solemn treaties.”* 

I know an excellent and venerable gentleman who, when a 
youth, served in the ranks which fought for liberty. He after-' 
wards resided a number of years in the city of Savannah. 
“ On a 4th of July morning, while I was residing there,” he 
lately said to me, “ I heard the sound of music, and the noise 


* Domestic Manners of the Americans , page 257. 

It is a lamentable and discouraging circumstance, that, for telling us 
“ truths, by which a wise people might profit,” Mrs. Trollop is loaded 
with obloquy in every form. I am sorry that the ingenuity of our 
Johnston has been employed to blacken one of the best friends this 
country has ever had. Johnston has satirized extremely well the 
breaking of the Indian Treaties , and yet he shows no mercy to Mrs. 
Trollop ! Her book, no doubt, has faults; but it has this redeeming qual¬ 
ity—it exposes facts which the American people would never know, if 
an independent and impartial foreigner did not promulgate them. 
“ Men love darkness because their deeds are evil.” Luther declared, 
towards the close of his life, that when he began the reformation, he 
thought that men required only to be enlightened. If he had known 
that they were aware of the abuses and corruptions of the Romish 
Church, and wished them, “ ten wild horses could not have drawn him 
to his task.” 



13 SHOCKING INCONSISTENCY OF AMERICAN SLAVERY. 13 

of a great crowd. I went forth to see what was the occasion; 
and I found a large party bearing a liberty pole, with the cap 
of liberty to be set up in the great public square. I looked 
on and saw the work proceed ; and I soon observed that there 
was not an individual employed in setting up the pole, and 
crowning it with the cap, except slaves. ‘ Is not that a pretty 
sight?’ said I to a friend—‘ slaves erecting a liberty pole! 7 
* You had better take care how you say such things in this 
place,’ replied he, and with this additional specimen of a free 
country, I turned back to my dwelling, which I then resolved 
should continue such no longer.” 

Dr. Torrey, of Philadelphia, a gentleman who appears to 
have been up and doing in relation to the subject of free bond¬ 
age or bond liberty, while most men were sleeping, relates a 
case strongly illustrative of the same amazing discrepancy. 
Dr. Torrey says : 

“ One of the members of the House of Representatives 
(Mr. Adgate) related to me, while at Washington, the following 
fact: During the last session of Congress (1815—16) as 
several members were standing in the street, near the new 
Capitol, a drove of manacled colored people were passing by; 
and when just opposite, one of them, elevating his manacles 
as high as he could, commenced singing the favorite national 
song— 

1 Hail, Columbia, happy land ! * ” * 

The Rev. John Ranlcin, a Presbyterian clergyman of Ohio, 
has published a little volume for which every good man must 
feel grateful to him. It shows its author to be one of those 
who are aptly called the salt of the earth, because they preserve 
it from moral putrescence. He states, that, in 1824, two slave 
traders in Kentucky, named Stone and Kinningham, had col¬ 
lected a drove, consisting of forty men and thirty women. 
The men were handcuffed and formed in ranks; and a chain 
about forty feet long passed between the ranks, to which the 
handcuffs of each file were attached by small chains connected 
as branches with the large one. The women, yoked together 
in pairs, were formed in the rear. At their head were posted 
two musicians, and about the centre of the company was the 
American flag, borne by chained hands. In this order, 
the procession moved to the sound of merry music towards 
the slave market of New-Orleans. They were seen by the 
Rev. James Dickey, passing through the town of Paris, in 


* Torrey’s Portraiture of Domestic Slavery in the United States , pp, 
39, 40. 

2 



ANCIENT AND AMERICAN SLAVERY. 


14 


14 


Kentucky, and he poured out his grief and indignation on the 
occasion in an elequent and touching letter to a friend.* 

In the District of Columbia, where it is acknowledged on 
all hands Congress have the power to abolish slavery, and a 
vast and diabolical slave trade, the red ensign of the auctioneer 
of men, is stuck up under the flag which waves from the tow¬ 
ers of the Capitol. 

In these cases, sensible objects are brought into a close 
and striking contrast, which is peculiarly shocking to the 
sight; yet it is only a material form of that moral contrast 
which is seen by every intelligent and incorrupt mind in the 
nation. The external contrast is no other or greater than 
is exhibited to the mind’s eye, every day throughout our 
country. It is exhibited, but veiled, in our very Constitution. 
It is the jarring of elements, which is described, as the prin¬ 
cipal characteristic of chaos. It cannot exist long in any sys¬ 
tem without bringing chaos back again. It will break up the 
foundations of the deep, and it ought to. I should have no 
faith in the justice of the Most High, if it would not. I see in 
the constant working of Providence to destroy unnatural and 
iniquitous combinations, the clearest proof of infinite wis¬ 
dom and goodness. 

The third and main point in this argument is the legal dis¬ 
abilities under which the colored race labor, and the utter 
absence of protection by law for the slaves. 

A case occurred a few years ago in the Court of Chancery 
of South Carolina, of which the facts were these : A planter 
named Walker died, leaving by his last will certain real and 
personal estate to trustees, for the use and support of his negro 
slave Betsey and her three children, who were also bequeathed 
by him to the same trustees, with a direction to make them 
free. The auestions for the court were, whether they could be 
made free in this manner, and whether the bequests and devises 
in their favor, (it being understood that the testator was the 
father of the children,) were valid and to be executed and 
paid. Both questions were decided in the negative. Chan¬ 
cellor Desaussure, in pronouncing the opinion of the Court, 
held the following language : 

“ The condition of the slaves in this country is analagous 
to that of the slaves of the ancients, the Greeks and Romans, 
and not that of the villeins of feudal times. They are gener¬ 
ally not considered as persons, but as things. They can be 


* Rankin's Letters on Slavery, pp. 80—4, and note, containing Rev. 
Mr. Dickey’s Letter. 



15 ORIGINS or ANCIENT AND MODERN SLAVERY. 15 

sold or transferred as goods or personal estate; they are held 
to be pro nullis pro mortuis. Almost all our statute regulations 
follow the principles of the civil law in relation to slaves , ex¬ 
cept in a few cases, wherein the manners of modern times , 
softened hy the benign principles of Christianity, could not 
tolerate the severity of the Roman regulations. They cannot 
be tortured, they cannot be put to death, with impunity 

I shall not say whether the Chancellor of South Carolina 
was himself deceived, or intended to deceive others; but this 
I will say, that either ignorance or wilful misrepresentation in 
the case can be proved. So far from its being true that Amer¬ 
ican slaveholders have yielded to the gentle spirit of Christian¬ 
ity, and made the condition of the slaves more tolerable than 
in Greece and Rome, the very reverse is the fact. We have 
departed from the civil law regulations on the wrong side, 
and increased their severity. Other modern slave nations, 
with one exception, departed at an early period from the civil 
law on the opposite side, softening its severity. We, the 
great republic of the United States of America, are left by this 
divergency of policy the most cruel slave nation upon earth. 
We stand alone. The superior light which we boast shows 
more glaringly the unequalled horrors of our nefarious pre¬ 
eminence. It renders the darkness more visible. 

Before I enter upon that minute comparison of the laws of 
different countries, upon which a just decision of the general 
question involved in the resolution depends, let us glance a 
moment at the respective origins of ancient and modern slavery. 

Slavery in Greece and Rome was a humane institution. It : 
constituted one of the most important improvements in the 
progress of civilization. In the early periods of the world, it 
was a law of war that all persons taken in the field of battle, 
or in the storming of cities, should be put to death: the 
history of the Jews, furnishes numerous examples.! The 
aborigines of this continent retain to this day the same national 
law, and almost universally put their prisoners of war to death. 
With the Greeks, Romans, and other contemporary nations, it 
was optional to kill, or save and sell into slavery. Thus we 
find Lysander putting to death three thousand Athenians after 
a great battle and the Athenians at another time massacre- 
ing the Spartans. 

Thus we find the Carthagenians sparing Regulus at one 
time, and subsequently putting him to a horrible death. A 

* Plutarch, 5, 228. 

t Dcsaussurc's Equity Reports of South Carolina , 4,267. 

% II Samuel , 8,2; ih. 12, 31. 



16 


ORIGINS OF ANCIENT AND MODERN SLAVERY. 


16 


prisoner of war not put to death by his captor, was called serva - 
tus, (saved), and hence, by abbreviation, the word servus, or 
slave, from which we have the English word servant , bearing— 
thanks be to God—a very different meaning. 

Few are they to whom life, though embittered with slavery, 
is not sweet. Few, “ though full of pain,” would voluntarily 
part with it like Demosthenes, Hannibal and Cato.* 

If, then, men love life, ancient slavery was a blessing, so far 
as it preserved life. And it was never justified at that time, 
except on the ground that it was better to exist as a slave, than 
not to exist at all. The civil law lays it down as a first prin¬ 
ciple, that slavery is contrary to natural right ,+ and only to 
be justified by the laws of war, but for which ancient slavery 
would never have existed. 

But modern slavery has no such excuse. Its victims are not 
the captives of open and allowed war ; they are the prey of 
skulking kidnappers and pirates, enemies of the human 
race. They are seized in the midst of peace, merely to make 
them slaves , not to save their lives when ready to be sacrificed 
by the hand of war. Modern slavery is not the consequence, 
but the cause of war not an amelioration of its horrors, but the 
fruitful source of fresh wars, each with its attendant train of 
horrors. 

The most common method of making captives to supply the 
slave ships, is for petty despots to make forays into neighboring 
territories, to surround villages in the dead of night, set fire to 
them, and seize upon the inhabitants as they issue from them, 
endeavoring to escape, naked and terrified from the fiames.§ 
It even happens, for avarice “ makes the meat it feeds upon,” 
that some of the kings of the Coast, if they cannot make war upon 
their neighbors, for the purpose of obtaining a supply of slaves 
for the Christian market, surround their own villages at mid¬ 
night, and treat them in the same way as they are wont to 
treat foreigners and enemies. But though this is the general 
method by which slaves have been obtained in Africa for about 
four hundred years, it is not the only one. There are many 
others. I give you a few authentic examples. 


* It is a curious coincidence, that Cato, whose ancestor was so unre¬ 
lenting in his enmity to Carthage, and, by his cruel policy, contributed 
so much to drive Hannibal to suicide, as well as to destroy that fair 
city, perished near its ruins, after surviving the fall of his own country, 
t Dig. 1,5, 1, de stat. hom. 

X Harper's Family Library , No. XVI, p.23G, —Discovery and; Adven¬ 
ture in Africa , 



17 CHRISTIANITY ABOLISHED ANCIENT SLAVERY. 17 

A native trader, going home with goods, is seized and sold. 

A negro is invited by a trader to see a ship, and then 
locked under the hatches. 

A father and son are set upon as they are planting yams, 
and dragged to a slaver and sold. 

A young woman, while bathing, is seized, and sold. 

Three persons, crossing a river in a canoe, are taken and 
sold. 

Three pupils, sons of chiefs in the interior, are sold by their 
tutor, a white man, who had opened a school on the Coast.* 

These are but few of the ways in which the hapless Africans 
are made slaves. No man has ever pretended to deny or doubt 
that the frequent wars, and perpetual distraction and desola¬ 
tion of Africa, are owing to the accursed aliment which Chris¬ 
tian slave owners and slave traders furnish. It is therefore the 
peculiar guilt of modern slavery, that it causes and increases 
those evils and crimes of bad men, and those sufferings of 
innocent men, which ancient slavery was intended to prevent, 
or to mitigate. 

We talk much about the ignorance and darkness of the 
heathen, and of their gross and sanguinary superstitions. 
How can we hold up our heads and talk thus? We must be 
either ignorant or past blushing; otherwise we could not do 
it, so long as this land is stained with slavery—slavery as much 
more cruel than Greek or Roman, in the manner of carrying 
it on, as it is more inexcusable in its origin. And what was 
the end of Roman slavery ? Christianity abolished it. The 
owners of slaves were terrified at its inconsistency with the 
precepts of the religion which they professed ; and they made 
solemn confessions of their crime, and formal surrenders of 
their pretended property in the persons of men, whom Christ 
had made free, and to every one of whom he bade his follow¬ 
ers do, as they would be done unto! In various ancient instru¬ 
ments of emancipation, the masters begin by declaring that 
“ for the love of God and Jesus Christ, for the ease of their 
consciences and the salvation of their souls,” they set their 
bondmen free. Yet, strange to tell, under the same Christian 
dispensation a new species of slavery, much worse than the 
which men with penitence and fear had abandoned, has started 
up, and now exists, especially in a country boasting of lib¬ 
erty, and “ reformed” Christianity —under aspects too 
sanguinary, too brutal and loathsome, to admit of description. 


* Manner of taking Slaves ; Rees’ Cyclopedia , Art. Slave Trade. 
Clarkson's History, vol. 2, p. 305—G. 

2* 




18 


ANCIENT AND AMERICAN SLAVERY. 


18 


If the case which I have stated, from the reports of public 
judicial proceedings in the State of South Carolina, had been 
decided by the Roman Laws, Betsey and her children would 
have been free, and would have taken the property, which their 
master and father willed them. But under those laws, “ sof¬ 
tened by the benign principles of Christianity,” this mother 
and her children were not only not permitted to take what was 
intended for them from the estate, but they were torn asunder 
and sold to the highest bidder for the purpose of adding to the 
estate ! As a special indulgence, or rather, as I suppose, for 
the mutual benefit of buyer and seller, the youngest child, an 
infant, was permitted, by consent of the parties, to remain a 
while longer with the mother. 

Thus we see in the very case in which the chief equity 
Judge of South Carolina puts forth this rash claim of his 
State, to peculiar credit for Christian benevolence and human¬ 
ity, the facts refute him at every point. For, in the first place, 
slaves could be manumitted by testament under the civil law,* * * § 
whereas, in South Carolina, they cannot.f In the second place, 
slaves could, by the civil law, become the heirs of their mas¬ 
ters; and, moreover, by being constituted heirs in his will, they 
became, by that very act , free,| without any provision for their 
emancipation. Nor is this all. A slave, by the civil law’, 
could be manumitted by testament, and in various other ways, 
even though his master was insolvent, unless it appeared not 
only that he was insolvent at the time of the manumission, but 
also that he did it with the intent to defraud his creditors ; be¬ 
cause if lie did it through ignorance of the precise situation of 
his affairs, or from any other cause, except a fraudulent intent 
towards his creditors, the slave was free.§ In the above case, 
the Chancellor alludes to a mortgage which there was upon 
these slaves, and upon the real estate devised to them, and says 
that they could not have been freed for that reason also, if 
the objection that, such freeing was contrary to the laws of 
Carolina, were removed. The civil law always presumed 
in favor of the liberty of slaves ; and inasmuch as it supported 
manumissions, even when they inflicted a total loss upon cred¬ 
itors, there can be no doubt in the case of a slave’s being 

* Inst. 1, 6,1. 

t It mustfbe by an act of the Legislature, ( Stroud's Laws of Slavery, 
pp. 14G—7,) or by a deed executed in life and full health by the master, 
(Des. Eq. Rrp. 2G7.J If Stroud be correct, this deed must be confirmed 
by an act of the Legislature. 

X Inst. 1, 6,2. 

§ Inst. 1 , 6,3. 



19 EMANCIPATION PROMOTED AT ROME. 19 

pawned, and his master’s directing in his will that such slave 
should be manumitted, he would have been manumitted, and 
received the property willed to him, provided there were estate 
of the testator to pay the debts, for which he and such prop¬ 
erty were pledged. This would have resulted from the analogy 
of the civil law, which always “ promoted the extinction of 
domestic servitude.”* The great discrepancy of the whole 
spirit of the civil law with that of the laws of South Caro¬ 
lina, is as well illustrated by this case, as the specific discrep¬ 
ancies which I have stated ; and the general spirit and analogy 
of laws are more important in an argument of this kind, than 
one or a great many particular examples. 

I have dwelt upon this case, not because it goes far to sus¬ 
tain my proposition—as it is too local and limited in its subject 
to contribute greatly to that end—but because I wished to 
show that the very case upon which this luckless speech and 
bootless boast was made, does no more concur with it than the 
course of Gilpin’s horse with the resolutions of the rider. I 
shall reserve the farther proofs which I propose to present, to 
show how the rigors of the civil law have been softened by the 
benign influence of Christianity in South Carolina , for the 
general heads to which those proofs respectively belong. 

This Republic is - the only slave'nation in the world in which 
the slave cannot acquire property, and purchase his freedom. 

By the civil law, slaves could possess property. They saved 
something from the monthly allowance for their subsistence, 
which was liberal, being, according to Dr. Adam, four or five 
bushels of grain, and about thirty cents in money per month , 
besides a daily allowance : and they also could earn some¬ 
thing for services, which they rendered over and above what 
was required of them. They frequently became wealthy by 
putting their gains out at interest, and by purchasing other 
slaves, whom they let for wages. Cicero, in whose time the 
Roman law was less favorable to slaves than the body of the 
civil law, as it has come down to us, declares that then any 
industrious and sober slave could work himself clear in six 
years. A good many important consequences resulted from 
the capacity of slaves to take and hold property. They could 
make contracts; they could maintain actions before the judicial 
tribunals ; they could make a species of testament, and, as I 
have already shown, they could take by testament. But the 
most important consequence to them was that they could pur¬ 
chase their freedom, if they had sufficient money of their oum 


Gibbon, vol. 3, p. 134. Inst. 3, 12. Dig. 40,1,2,2,6. 4,4. 5,17. 



20 EMANCIPATION PROMOTED IN THE WEST INDIES. 20 

to pay for it. This provision was finally extended, so that the 
money of a friend, or even the security of a friend to pay 
money, was deemed, in law, the slave’s own money , and was 
equally efficacious to procure him his .freedom.* Charles V, 
whose humane code for the relief and protection of slaves has 
been justly said to do him more honor than his vast empire and 
his victories, established the best of the Roman laws for the 
Spanish colonies, as did likewise Louis XIV, and his prede¬ 
cessors, for the French colonies. I believe that it is universally 
true, that the humane provisions of the civil law were adopted 
from fifty to three hundred years ago by all the continental 
governments of Europe, who possess colonies and tolerate 
slavery in them, although, at this time, not one of them toler¬ 
ates it at home ;—and that the harsher features of the civil 
law have been either mitigated or entirely done away by the 
same governments. 

This observation applies to the Spanish, French, Portu¬ 
guese, Danish and Swedish colonies. In all of them, the 
slaves can have property, and can purchase their freedom, as 
they could in ancient Rome. In Cuba, according to our late 
countryman, the Rev. Dr. Abbot , the slave has a right to his 
freedom not only if he can offer his value at the time, but also 
if he (xan offer what his master actually gave for him.f In 


* Dig. 40,1,4. 

t u The free blacks in Cuba are considerably numerous : the number 
has been stated to exceed 100,000. It is a redeeming circumstance in 
regard to the Spanish character, that their laws favor emancipation, 
and the government faithfully executes them. If the slave can present 
his value, nay, only his cost, to his master, however reluctant he may 
be to part with the best body servant he has, or an invaluable mechanic, 
or skilful driver, he cannot retain him. If he attempt to evade the 
demand, the captain of the Partido must enforce it, and evasion in 
either case is punished with high pecuniary penalties. 

“ Nor is it so difficult a thing for a smart and saving negro to accom¬ 
plish the means. Food is furnished to them so abundantly by their 
masters, that the fruits of their own gardens may be converted into 
money. A certain method is to raise a hog, which they can do, to a 
large size, by corn of their own growing. 1 have seen swine belong¬ 
ing to slaves worth two or three ounces, (forty or fifty dollars,) and 
there are purchasers enough without their carrying them to market. 
Live hogs are at this moment sold here at eight dollars per hundred on 
the hoof. At any rate, negroes make money, and some save and bury 
it, and at an early period in life may buy their freedom. This very 
.week, a splendid funeral was made for a black woman who paid for her 
freedom, and has left behind her $100,000, collected by her industry, 
and also an amiable and respectable character. From my chamber 
window 1 look down upon a family of freed blacks, who are my laun¬ 
dresses. They sell admirable spruce beer, and I know not what else; 
and the daughter amuses herself, and the family, and the neighborhood, 



21 EMANCIPATION OBSTRUCTED IN THE UNITED STATES. 21 

the British slave colonies, which most resemble our Southern 
States, there have been great ameliorations in this respect, but 
in some greater than others. In the Crown colonies, which 
are under the direct legislation of the king in council, the re¬ 
cent improvements appear to surpass, in some respects, those 
in the colonies of the continental nations.* * In the chartered 
British colonies, under the influence of the public opinion of 
England, and of much patient coercion by the British govern¬ 
ment, ameliorations have been measurably introduced. In all 
of them the slave may have property, and may purchase his 
freedom, the price being fixed by the magistrate, or by apprais¬ 
ers appointed by him, or mutually chosen by the slave and 
his master. 

Let us now turn our eyes inward, if we can, and look at our 
own country. You will expect me to tell in what modes 
slaves can purchase their freedom of the free, and under what 
peculiar regulations it may be done in different States. At 
least you will expect to be informed in what particular States, 
(if there be any so degenerate and inconsistent,) it can not be 
done. The task is soon accomplished. There is not one in 
which it can he done ! There is not one in which the slaves 
can legally have a farthing of property of any sort or kind ! 
Our Republic is a complete Pandora’s box to the slave, except 
that there is no hope at the bottom. In this circumstance, it is 
most clearly, most infamously, worse than the worst ! But this 
is not all. The republican slave, the slave chained by the 
hands of democracy and political equality , can not only discern 
no ray of hope from any thing in his own power to do, but he 
can seldom have any from the good disposition Of the most 
pious and penitent master.! The slave States have prohibited 


by singing with a sweet and powerful voice of great compass, and 
accompanies her singing by the guitar. All this I rejoice to see and 
hear, and delight to record in honor of the Spanish government. And 
I would hide my face for shame, that in some of our republican States, 
a statute forbids manumission, even when the owner is disposed to 
grant, or the slave is prepared to purchase the blessing.”— Abbot's Let¬ 
ters ^written in the interior of Cuba, in 1828, p. 97. 

* London Anti-Slavery Reporter , for January , 1832. 

t Dr .Torrey mentions several instances of southerners becoming dis- 
satisfied with themselves for holding their fellow-men in bondage, but 
not being permitted to emancipate by the laws of the States in which 
they resided, had applied to societies or governments of other States 
for assistance to remove their slaves, or for an asylum for them, but 
generally without success. 

It gives me pleasure to mention here with honor due the noble exam¬ 
ple of Mr. David Minge , a gentleman of Charles City County, Virginia, 
who, emancipated, and, at his own cost, removed, and established as farm- 



22 EMANCIPATION OBSTRUCTED IN THE UNITED STATES. 22 

masters from emancipating, or have imposed such a tariff 
upon humanity, as amounts to a prohibition. The consent of 
the creditors of the master must first be had, or the emancipa¬ 
ted slave will be subject to be seized at any time for debts. 
North Carolina is said to be an exception, but it is the only 
one, and in that State, emancipation can be made only for the 
single cause of meritorious services .* * The Louisiana code is 
the most favorable to the liberty of the slave, because it was a 
Spanish and French colony, and has based its legislation upon 
the civil law ; but, even there, as if some malignant demon 
presided over all that is done or attempted in this country, they 
have departed from their model on the wrong side; they have 
thrown away the best, and kept the “ worser part.” The slave 
cannot be emancipated in fraud of creditors , and this fraud 
is proved not by any actual fraudulent intent of the emanci¬ 
pator, as was required by the civil law, but by his not having 
sufficient to pay his debts, “ at the moment of executing the 
enfranchisement.” In South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama 
and Mississippi, an act of the legislature can alone emanci¬ 
pate a slave. In Virginia, a master may emancipate a slave, 
on condition of sending him out of the State within twelve 
months. In Maryland, the law used to be the same, without 
this restriction, but I believe it has lately been added. In 
Kentucky, the master is required to give a bond with surety to 
support the emancipated slave, if he should ever become a 
pauper. Missouri, it is believed, has regulations analagous to 
those of Virginia, and Tennessee to those of North Carolina, 
except that creditors are allowed to hold on upon the emanci¬ 
pated slave. 

In all these States, if the emancipation be made in any 
manner different from that prescribed by law, the emancipated 
person is taken up and sold into slavery again, and the proceeds, 
after rewarding the person who informs against or arrests him, 
are appropriated to public uses. But Georgia, being a rather 
fiercer democracy than common, has imposed a fine of two 
hundred dollars upon the emancipator over and above the con- 


ers in Hay ti, his slaves, sixty in number, about five or six years ago. The 
property sacrificed by him in doing this, was $31,800. Mr. Niles, in 
noticing- this transaction in his Register at the time, states, “ That Mr. 
Minge was a gentleman of about 25 years of age, and that he released 
his slaves for the quiet of his mind, retaining but two and those eman¬ 
cipated.” 

* This means some action which would be called brilliant and heroic, 
if done by a white, such as saving a master’s life at the risk of the 
slave’s. 



23 emancipation prohibited in the united STATES. 23 

fiscation and sale of the slave. By a more recent act, the same 
State has imposed a penalty of one thousand dollars upon any 
person who shall emancipate or enter into any agreement to 
emancipate a slave, or shall allow him to earn any money for 
himself; and by the same law such agreement is declared null 
and void. The same severity is not exercised in all the slave 
States upon the master who permits his slave to acquire and 
lay up something for himself ; but there is not one in which 
the slave is allowed by law to do so, or is protected in the pos¬ 
session of one cent of property .* In Virginia, I am informed, 
by a respectable colored man, who lived and suffered there for 
thirty-two years, that, if a slave make a bargain, at the peril of 
the public whipping—which the law carefully provides indepen¬ 
dently of that which the master may himself inflict—or if he 
by any other means gain a little money, he must hide it; and, 
if detected, he is not only deprived of it, but whipped with any 
degree of severity which may suit the master’s habits and 
temper, or his particular resentment against the unfortunate 
individual. 

I state a case to show how entirely the slave is at the mercy 
of the master, even though the master himself have contracted 
and promised to give him his liberty. This case occurred in 
Virginia a few years ago, but it might have occurred in any 
of the slave States. 

A master had repeatedly promised to manumit a slave who 
was an excellent blacksmith, but he had as often violated his 
promise. The slave had worked earlier, later and harder, up¬ 
on the expectation of becoming so much the sooner a man. 
At length, however, his heart grew sick. Disappointment, 
sharper than a serpent’s tooth, relaxed the sinews of his arm, 
and poisoned his coarse and scanty fare. The master, to re¬ 
vive his spirits and restore his vigor, finally promised with 
unwonted solemnity, that if he would earn by extra labor a 
certain sum of money, amounting to several hundred dollars, 
he should be free. The slave fell to work once more with 
redoubled energy. He toiled long and hard, and at last the 
blessed day dawned, on which, according to the stipulation of 
his master, he was to be enfranchised. But that treacherous 
and brutal individual had sold him to a slave trader, to be 
carried to New-Orleans ! and on that day he was destined to 
receive—not his promised freedom, but a new suit of chains. 


* My authority on the subject of the southern slave laics, is Mr. 
Stroud's work already quoted. It was published in Philadelphia, in 
1827. 



24 SLAVES TORTURED AT WILL IN T1IE UNITED STATES.' 24 

The heart-stricken man told his tale to the trader; how he had 
been promised, how he had toiled, what cherished and often 
deferred hopes would be blasted forever. He entreated 
him in the most touching language, to renounce the 
sacrilegious bargain. But “ there is no flesh in the heart” 
of a slave trader. Seeing that his prayers and tears were 
vain, the slave became desperate. He told the dealer that if 
he did take him, one or the other of them must die; and that 
he then gave liim fair warning. The trader was highly 
diverted, and said “ he liked such a spirited fellow.” They 
went on board a vessel, and, during a serene evening in that 
delicious climate, the trader reposed himself upon the deck. 
In the dead of the night, the slave contrived to rid himself of 
his hand-cufts, and groped until he grasped a heavy handspike, 
and, thus armed, stood over the sleeping man. He waked him 
and told his purpose. “ Then God have mercy on me,” said 
the slave trader. “ God will not have mercy on you, neither 
will I,” said the slave, and dashed out his brains.—[ Applause .] 

Private whipping, imprisoning, chaining, starving, and oth¬ 
erwise torturing at will , constitute another appalling and pe¬ 
culiar feature of slavery in these United States. I shall pre¬ 
sent a number of well-authenticated facts, which fully bear 
out this assertion. I wish nothing that I may say on this or 
any part of the subject, to be taken upon trust. I will prove 
every thing by law, or by the absence of law, and by actual 
occurrences; and if there be one, who will listen candidly, 
and will then deny that I make out clearly that the slaves of 
the United States are in the hands of their masters, as Job 
was in those of “ the enemy of mankind,” with the exception 
that here there is no condition to spare life , then I will never 
open my mouth again upon “ the delicate subject.” Delicate 
indeed ! If the hundredth part of that which is known re¬ 
specting it were to be stated, it would drive every maid and 
matron from this hall. 

Mr. Clarkson, the venerable Apostle of Abolition, moved 
all England by facts. By facts, he made enthusiasts of frigid 
statesmen; and the thunders of indignation, which broke 
from Wilberforce, Fox and Pitt, shook the prepared shackles 
from the fingers of British man-thieves. Perhaps the aboli¬ 
tionists of the United States have neglected too much to lay 
before the community the facts which they know, or could 
readily collect, in relation to the actual state of slavery in this 
country. Perhaps we are still influenced, though unconscious¬ 
ly, by that artful and slavish delusion as to the obligations of 
the compact, which for fifty years has stifled our voice like 


$5 REPLV TO THE « WHITE SLAVES.” 25 

the nightmare. “ We have nothing to do with the subject of' 
slavery.” (Would to God w r e could wash our hands of the 
guilt !) “ We have no right to touch it.” Such is the servile 

cant of “dough-faces,” and “white slaves,” as they have 
been ungratefully, though very justly denominated by one of 
their southern masters. I am sorry to sav, that a great many 
worthy people, not knowing the interested motives of those 
who raise this cry, chime in and swell the grand chorus, “ no 
right to touch it,” “ no right to touch it.” 

It does seem sometimes as if eyes were made to see dark¬ 
ness. This very assertion, of “ no right to touch it,” does 
touch it. For we have a right to dispute that point. We 
are not obliged by any custom of our country, nor by any law 
in Massachusetts, to receive the dogma without examination. 
No doubt it has been authoritatively pronounced and exten¬ 
sively believed; but, after all, it is not a revelation from Heav¬ 
en, (I am more apt to think it a suggestion from the other 
place); nor is it a decision which binds our will. It is but a 
simple declaration whereon we take issue, and claim to give 
evidence under this issue, of all the crimes of slavery. The 
question is one respecting moral right, for none pretend 
that we are legally restrained; and this question depends on 
others, viz., what are the rights and what are the condition 
and treatment of the free colored people and slaves in these 
States ? 

Again, fellow-citizens; suppose “ we the people” should 
choose to agitate the question of amending the federal consti¬ 
tution with a view to extirpate from it this pestilent principle, 
would it not be right and necessary to discuss the subject in 
newspapers and in popular meetings. I undertake to say that, 
in the present state of this country, or in any proper state of 
a republic, no amendment of the constitution, nor great im¬ 
provement of any kind, can be effected, except it be so dis¬ 
cussed. To say that we have no right to discuss the subject 
of slavery, is to say, in effect, that that article of the federal 
constitution which provides for amending the same constitu¬ 
tion, is inapplicable to that provision of it which lends a sanc¬ 
tion to what all acknowledge to be grossly unjust. I give this 
froth to the winds. I am ashamed of having ever been blind¬ 
ed by it, and of having now to contend against it. 

The ancient Greeks and Romans* did provide protec¬ 
tion for slaves against the cruelty of masters. Slaves, if 

*“They were allowed to fly for sanctuary to Theseus’s temple, 
whence to force them was an act of sacrilege. And those that had 

3 



26 ANCIENT AND WEST INDIA WHIPPING LIMITED. 26 

if whipped without cause, or to excess for good cause, or oth¬ 
erwise abused, could take refuge in the temples and at the 
feet of certain statues, where it was sacrilege to molest them. 
When a slave resorted to this remedy, his case was inquired 
into by the magistrates, and if the decision was in his favor, 
the master forfeited the right to retain him. An analogous 
regulation exists in the Spanish colonies.* In Brazil, at 
present the most populous slave nation, it is still better. There 
the master is obliged, under a severe penalty, to give his slave 
a written license to seek another master whenever the slave 
demands it; a person willing to purchase being found, the 
magistrate fixes the price.! Besides this general law, there 
are specific limitations of the number of stripes in each of 
those countries. By the Code Noir, the slave in the French 
colonies had his action against the master for cruel whipping. 


been barbarously treated by their masters, had the privilege of com¬ 
mencing a suit against them, which they called Ubrcios cliken , Aikcas 
diken, the former of which was against such as had made any violent 
attempts upon the chastity of their slaves; the latter against those 
who had used too much severity in punishing them ; and if it appear¬ 
ed that the complaint was reasonable and just, the master was obliged 
to sell his slave.”— Potter's Antiq. Gr. vol. I, p. 76. 

“ It is not allowed to any man in our empire, without a cause 
known to the laws, to rage against his slaves. For by the constitution 
of the divine Antoninus, he who killed his own slave, without a cause, 
was ordained to be punished the same as if he had killed the slave of 
another person. And the too great severity of masters was restrained 
by a constitution of the same prince ; for being consulted by some of 
the governors of the provinces respecting certain slaves, who fled to 
the sacred edifice, and to the statue of the Emperor, he ordained that 
if the cruelty of the masters appeared to be intolerable, they should be 
compelled to sell their slaves upon fair terms, and receive the price 
thereof: and therein he decided righteously, because it is profitable 
to the Republic, that every one should use well and not ill that which 
is his own,—which rescript is in the words following, to wit: “ The 
power of masters over their slaves ought to be unlimited, nor ought 
they to be deprived thereof: but it is the interest of the masters that 
protection against cruelty, starvation and intolerable injuries, should 
not be refused to the slaves who justly complain. Therefore, take 
cognizance of the complaint of Julius Sabinus’s slaves, who have taken 
refuge at the statue ; and, if you find that they have been held harder 
than is just, or have been persecuted with infamous injuries, order 
it so that they never again be placed in the power of their master ; and 
if any one defrauds this constitution of its effect, be it known to him 
that 1 will punish the same (when it shall appear) very severely.”— 
Inst. 1, 8,2. 

* Abbott's Letters. 

t Verbal information from Major Frias e Vasconcellos and S. Marques 
de Sousa , Brazilian travellers in the United States. 



$57 WHIPPING UNLIMITED IN THE UNITED STATES. 27 

Imprisonment and chains were totally prohibited, and no pun¬ 
ishment except with the rod was allowed.* * * § 

The British order in council of 1831, restrains private 
whipping to fifteen stripes. Even this cannot be inflicted 
without the presence of witnesses, nor without a record there¬ 
of being made by the master or manager, or by another per¬ 
son, if the master or manager cannot write.f No slave 
can be punished twice, nor with two different kinds of pun¬ 
ishment for the same offence ; nor twice on the same day for 
different offences, nor until six hours after committing any of¬ 
fence. By the same order, no master can inflict corporal pun¬ 
ishment upon a female in any case. And if a master inflict 
or authorize any illegal or cruel punishment, or any other cru¬ 
elty, the court, beside fine and imprisonment, may declare his 
interest in the slave forfeited ; and if the master offend a sec¬ 
ond time, the court may remove him from the management 
of all his slaves, and render him incapable forever after of 
managing or controlling any slave.! 

In this country there is no law limiting the arbitrary pun¬ 
ishment of a slave; it is left to the discretion of the master ; 
or, to speak more truly, it is left to his caprice, his wantonness, 
his anger, occasionally to his intoxication, and very often to 
his revenge. How the absence of legal protection is sup¬ 
plied by the kindness of republican slave masters, let facts 
determine.§ 

* Code JYoir, Enc. Jur, Art. Esclavage, p. 333. 

t It does seem, then, that there are masters of slaves who cannot 
write. It would be to the honor of many of them, if they could nei¬ 
ther write nor read. 

A southern planter, who originated in the north, was dining with a 
party of neighboring slaveholders. The wine circulated briskly, and 
conversation became as sincere as at the suppers of Astyages. It hap¬ 
pened, as is quite usual, that the mean character of the northerners 
was the subject of discussion. The emigrant had spirit enough to re¬ 
pel the charges against his countrymen, and he said that whatever 
else might be said of them, they could read and write. Before the 
party separated, the host came to this man, and told him that he must 
take a. bed at his house that night, for, said he, you have mortally of¬ 
fended a gentleman of the party, who will meet you on your way 
home, and compel you to fight him. “What for?” said the guest. 
^Oh, nothing at all, only he thinks that you meant to insult him , 
when you spoke of reading and writing.” Upon this information, the 
offender took occasion to make satisfactory explanation, and the affair 
passed off without a duel or an assassination. 

X London Anti-Slavery Reporter , vol. 5, No 1. 

§ I am aware that all the slave States do not say expressly, that a 
master may whip a slave to death ; but 1 do say, that in no State is the 
degree or the kind of punishment restricted bv law. There is no linai- 



28 WHIPPING UNLIMITED IN THE UNITED STATES. 2S 

A gentleman in this city saw a harness-maker in Charles¬ 
ton seize a leather tug or trace, containing a heavy iron eye in 
the end, and, with this instrument, held with both hands, draw 
several strokes over the body and head of a slave. The mas¬ 
ter was totally regardless whether the iron lit upon the head, 
or the eye, or the mouth of the slave. He cried out piteous¬ 
ly that his master would kill him. The sight was too painful 
for an unaccustomed spectator, and the gentleman withdrew. 
This slave had been sent from the country by the sister of the 
person who so punished him, to be taught domestic service; 
and his offence was some slight awkwardness or trifling blun¬ 
der in his new employment.* 

A clergyman of Kentucky declared that he had seen a 
master whip repeatedly a female slave who was upwards of 
eighty years old, and who had been this master’s “ mammy,” 
that is, had nursed him at her breast, in his in fancy, t 

A gentleman who has been in North Carolina, has seen a 
female slave, who complained of illness, and refused to work, 
struck with the blade of a paddle , twelve or fifteen blows. 
Two hours after this treatment she was confined. The same 
gentleman saw a free negro tied to a tree, and a negress slave, 
who was attached to him, ordered to whip him. She refused, 
saying she loved him too well. The white men then tied her 
up and gave her “ five.” This overcame her resolution, and 
she consented to whip the man.J 

In derision, this tree was called “ the Lafayette tree.” 
The secret of this affair was, that the negress had been the mis¬ 
tress of one of these w hites. Yet we are told that whites are el¬ 
evated too much above negroes to feel resentment or revenge 
towards them. § 


tation any where except the general laws against murder, and these 
are never enforced for the killing of a slave. 

Strangers are more likely to take notice of this horrid anomaly than 
we are. Young Murat, a strong advocate of slavery, and when here 
an owner, states the proposition without qualification as respects the 
law. The following are his words : 

II n’esiste a’ la verite aucune loi qui protege l’esclave contre le 
rnatvais traitement du maitre.” 

The sense is: 

In truth, no law exists which protects the slave against bad treat¬ 
ment from his master. 

See also, on this subject, Stroud's Slave Laics, p. 35, and Rankin's 
Letters on Slavery. 

* Mr- Preston Shepard, of Boston. 

t MS. of Mr. Garrison. 

+ Mr. Francis Standin, of Boston, § Murat■ 



29 WHIPPING UNLIMITED IN THE UNITED STATES. 29 

The Duke of Saxe Weimar states that a female slave was 
whipped at New Orleans by her mistress, that her lover was 
compelled to stand by and count off the lashes, and that she 
was afterwards publicly whipped by the magistrate. Her of¬ 
fence was, that, being engaged in some other duty, she had 
not started quite as quick to bring water to a lodger as he 
thought she should do. He struck her a blow in the face 
which made the blood run, and she, in sudden heat and re¬ 
sentment, seized him by the throat,* 

The Rev. Mr. Rankin details the case of a female slave in 
Kentucky, the mildest and freest of the slave States. Her 
master had purchased an article of furniture, which his wife, 
in the presence of a neighboring gentleman, had the misfor¬ 
tune to break. She laid this accident to the slave girl, when 
her husband made inquiry respecting it. He suspended the 
girl from the limb of a tree in a manner not to be described, and 
commenced the usual operation of whipping. Extreme tor¬ 
ture drew from her a confession, but when the pain was eased, 
the poor girl returned to her first and honest denial, where¬ 
upon the whipping recommenced. Fortunately, the identical 
gentleman who was a witness of the accident, happened to 
be passing. He declared the truth, and rescued the girl.f 

Mr. William Ladd, known as a friend of colonization, and 
an opponent of this Society, and not likely, therefore, to ex¬ 
aggerate, but rather to soften the harsh features of the sys¬ 
tem, alludes publicly to the following, among other horrors 
which he has witnessed : A gentleman of his acquaintance, 
was offended with a female slave. He seized her by the arm, 
and thrust her hand into the fire, and there he held it until it 
was burnt off. “ I saw,” said Mr. Ladd, “ the withered 
stump.”:}: 

Mr. Sutcliff, an English Quaker, who travelled in this 
country, relates a case very like that of the Kentucky girl, 
only that the catastrophe was more shocking. A slave owner, 
near Lewistown, in the State of Delaware, lost a piece of leath¬ 
er. He charged a little slave boy with stealing it. The boy 
denied. The master tied the boy’s feet, and suspended him 
from the limb of a tree, attaching a heavy weight to his ancles, 
as is usual in such cases, to prevent such kicking and writh¬ 
ing as would break the blows. He then whipped; the boy 


* Saxe Weimar's Travels. 
t Rankin s Letters , p. 103. 

X Mr. William Ladd's Address at the meeting of the Maasachu 
aetta Colonization Society, Jan. 1833. 

3* 



30 


WHIPPING UNLIMITED IN THE UNITED STATES. 


30 


- 


confessed; and then he commenced whipping anew for the 
offence itself. He was a kind master, and never whipped 
the lad again, for he died under the lash! Then the slave¬ 
holder’s own son, smitten with remorse, acknowledged that 
lie took the leather.* 

An honorable friend, who stands high in the state and in 
the nation, was present at the burial of a female slave in 
Mississippi, who had been whipped to death at the post b) T 
her master, because she was gone longer of an errand to the 
neighboring town, than her master thought necessary. Un¬ 
der the lash she protested that she was ill, and was obliged to 
rest in the fields. To complete the climax of horror, she 
was delivered of a dead infant before her master had com¬ 
pleted his work! f 

I am convinced that these statements are true, and that a 
volume might be annually filled with similar ones, and would 
be, if we felt what we ought, for the “ tortured slave.”! I 
am also convinced that they will be treated as if they were 
all false, by a large portion of this and every community in 
the Republic. What facts of this kind, stated by foreign 
travellers, (who did not feel their tongues tied by “ the com¬ 
pact,”) have not been scouted by respectable and popular pe¬ 
riodicals in this country, as Munchausen tales! Be it so. I 
will not dispute the point. I give facts as I find them in 
books, or have heard them from credible persons. I believe 
them. Let others dispose of them as they can. 

I proceed to further facts, resting on authority which the 
most supple flatterers of despots will not venture to gainsay, 
because they cannot do it without charging falsehood and 
forgery upon those whom it is their purpose to flatter and to 
lull into profound indifference. 

In the Southern Judicial Reports, there are cases in which 
owners have prosecuted to recover the pecuniary value of 
slaves murdered. This class of cases is numerous in those 
Reports. But in the nature of things, the cases in which 


* Sutcliff’s Travels in North America , p. 177. See Boston Calu¬ 
met of Peace , vol. 1, No. 12. 

t The narrator of this fact is now absent from the United States 
and I do not feel at liberty to mention his name. 

11 have alwaj 7 s admired Mrs. Morton’s elegy on * 11 the African 
Chief,” slain at St. Domingo, in 1791. The following stanza inspires 
a melancholy thoughtfulness: 

“ Let sorrow bathe each blushing cheek, 

Bend piteous o’er the tortured slave, 

Whose wrongs compassion cannot speak, 

Whose only refuge is the grave.” 



31 


WHIPPING UNLIMITED IN THE UNITED STATES. 


31 


the masters and their drivers have Whipped to death or other¬ 
wise killed their slaves, must be much more numerous. But 
of these, the Southern Reports show not a trace, because the 
master could not prosecute himself for the value of the .slave 
he had killed, and would not be likely, except in a very ex¬ 
traordinary case, to prosecute his agent. And if he charged 
him with the value, he would take it out of his wages, or in 
some other manner settle it without a suit. Those Reports 
afford not the slightest indication that condign punishment 
was ever, in any instance, inflicted upon the white murderer 
of a slave. Thus we see that avarice asserts her claim, and 
is listened to at the tribunals, while justice is buried with the 
dead. 

One Harris let a slave to one Nichols, to labor for a term. 
Nichols underlet the same slave to one Patterson. The over¬ 
seer of Patterson, Thilman by name, “ so unlawfully, cruel¬ 
ly and excessively whipped the said slave Joe, alias Roger, 
that by reason of such unlawful, cruel and excessive whip¬ 
ping, the said slave afterwards died.” You would naturally 
suppose that this is an extract from an indictment against 
Thilman for murder. Not at all. It is from the writ which 
Harris brought against Nichols , to recover civil damages. 
Wirt, Wickham, and Chapman Johnson, were counsel in the 
case. The claim was not sustained by the court. Judge 
Spencer Roane, one of Virginia’s favorite great men, de¬ 
livered the opinion of all the judges of the Court of Appeals, 
that “ the act of Thilman was not authorized by the defend¬ 
ant, and was not committed in the usual and proper course of 
his duty, but was a wilful and unauthorized trespass.”* 

If the whipping to death had been in the course of duty , 
or if, in the language of North Carolina and Georgia, “ he 
had died of moderate correction,” then this murder would not 
have been even so much as “ a trespass.” In fact, the Vir¬ 
ginia express law was, until a late period, precisely the same 
as that of North Carolina and Georgia,! and the exami¬ 
nation of the Reports of that State will convince any one that 
the practice continues the same to this day. Indeed, that 
State seems to have been sensible of the inconvenience and 
danger of opening a pit, into which many valuable members 
of the planting nobility (who are “the State”), might possibly 
fall, when they repealed their-lrilling-by-moderatc-corrcction 
act. They almost simultaneously passed an act, which sup- 

* Munford's Virginia Reports, vol. 5, p. 484. 

t Virginia Revised Code , vol. 2, Ap. p. 103. 



32 WHIPPING UNLIMITED IN T1IE UNITED STATES. 32 

plies the place of that repealed. The difference between them 
is, that the existing law throws that scandalous part of judi¬ 
cial duty which consists in clearing the guilty, into the hands 
of obscure tribunals. The law is, that an acquittal before a 
justice of the peace, to whom complaint shall be made, and 
tour assistant justices, whom the first mentioned shall sum¬ 
mon to attend the examination, shall be final and a bar to 
any other or future prosecution; and that no person shall ba 
tried in any other court , unless he or she shall have been ex¬ 
amined as aforesaid by a court of five justices. 

It seems as if the Virginians intended by this act to make 
assurance doubly sure, for with a jury of slaveholders , with 
judge slaveholders, and prosecuting and prisoner’s counsel 
slaveholders, no master could ever be in imminent danger for 
killing a chattel. To show how this may be, and at the same 
time to exhibit a specimen of the manner in which laws, so 
called, for the protection of slaves, are executed by that 
oligarchy, any one of whom, is quite likely, the next week 
after condemning his neighbor, to become a criminal him¬ 
self,—I will state a case from Judges Brockenborough and 
Holmes’ Virginia Cases: 

One Thomas Sorrell was examined before the Examining 
Court of the County of Westmoreland, for the murder of a 
slave, the property of Ebenezer Moore. The court found 
him guilty of manslaughter , and sent him for trial to the su¬ 
perior court. Here, in the General Court, he was indicted 
for murder. The question arose whether the grand jury 
could indict for a higher crime than the magistrates had sent 
the criminal up for? This was decided by all the judges in 
the affirmative, and it was also agreed by all, that if the pris¬ 
oner had been acquitted by the examining magistrates, that 
would have been a good, bar to this indictment. Here, then, 
was one criminal, who, by a misunderstanding of the law on 
the part of the justices, had slipped out of their friendly hands, 
and had been casually grappled in the dark by the hands of 
another tribunal, which was more conspicuous, and felt more 
responsibility to the country. I cannot have a doubt that the 
magistrates would have fully acquitted Sorrell, if they had 
thought it possible for him to be indicted in the superi¬ 
or court, for murder. At the same time, their binding 
him over at all is good evidence that they thought him very 
criminal, and that they could not acquit their consciences if 
they fully acquitted him. 

This murderer, then, this “ shedder of man’s blood,” this 
defacer of the image of his God, was put on trial, and “ ac - 


33 WHIPPING UNLIMITED IN THE UNITED STATES. 33 

quitted directly contrary to evidence” says Mr. Tucker, one 
of the most upright and respectable men of Virginia * 

I state another Virginia case, not from the Judicial Re¬ 
ports, but from the report of a respectable colored man, who 
was a Virginian. I state it in his own language, as I took it 
down. It will show what recent improvements have been 
made in the Virginia laws, and the treatment of that portion 
of the population, which it should be the pride of “ chivalry” 
to protect, because they are the weak and oppressed, and un¬ 
able t© protect themselves. 

Doctor , a slave, very old, forty or fifty years, was reap¬ 
ing, and couldn’t keep up his row. Overseer whipped him 
very bad. But he didn’t keep up his row then ; and overseer 
went to whip him again ; and, after giving him a few lashes, 

he fell. Overseer went to master and told him that the d-d 

old s-b-had laid down and would not work. The 

master went to him, and, repeating those words, kicked him, 
and bade him get up. But he was dead; and where his mas¬ 
ter kicked him, the skin peeled off, as it was cut with whip¬ 
ping and exposed to the sun. We carried him to the grave 
yard, and dug a hole and put him in.” 

These are the words that I heard, except that I omit names. 
I asked my informant if he called a man old at “ forty-five 
or fifty ?” “ Oh,” said he, “ he was broke down—worked to 

death.” “ But was no inquiry made as to the cause of his 
peath ?” “ No, master did nothing to overseer; he did 

not dismiss him, or blame him.” “ Do you think the slaves 
are treated as bad now as they were when this happened ?” 
“ Worse—been growing worse ever since. They shoot them 
like dogs now. It is worse than ever.” “ But what do you 
mean by grave yard? Was it the church yard?” “No, sir. 
Slaves are buried in a yard on each plantation.” “ Is there 
no funeral when a slave dies ?” “ Sometimes, but not oft¬ 

en.”f 

This case leads me to remark the important fact that coro¬ 
ner’s inquests, required by the common law, do not appear to 
be in fashion at the south, if the deceased be a slave. The 
British government, in carrying on their noble plans, deemed 
it of the first necessity to provide for a strict execution of the 


* Virginia Cases , p. 258. 

t “ We find the Athenian Lawgiver commanding the magistrates, 
called demarchi, under a severe penalty, to solemnize the funerals not 
so much of citizens, whose friends seldom failed of paying the last 
honors, as slaves, who frequently were destitute of decent burial.”— 
Potter's, Antiq. vol. 1, p. 1C8.” 





84 WHIPPING UNLIMITED IN THE UNITED STATES. 34 

law for inquests on dead bodies of slaves.* The infer¬ 
ence which I draw from this omission is, that the authorities 
think that it would create unnecessary trouble and danger 
to institute proceedings which they are all firmly resolved 
shall never come to any thing. 

My next case is from the Judicial Reports of South Caro 
Una. 

A slave named Isaac, belonging to one William Gray, was 
whipped to death by one Guy Raines. Raines was indicted 
for murder, and also for killing on sudden heat and passion. 
On the trial, Raines was permitted to introduce evidence of 
his own declarations as to the homicide and the circumstances 
of it. Those declarations were, that the negro was a very 
bad negro; that he had been a runaway, and been shot and 
had the shot in him ; that Raines was taking him to jail by 
order of Gray , his master ; that on the way the negro turned 
eullen and would not go, and Raines gave him five hundred 
lashes; that, when he [Raines] found that whipping would not 
make him go, he tied his feet and left him in order to go and 
get assistance; that, at the first house he came to, he requested 
two women to go to the slave and see that nobody cut him 
loose, until Raines could go to one Young’s and get further 
assistance. 

On the part of the prosecution, it was proved that the ne- 
gTO died in about eight minutes after the two women reached 
him ; that he bled at the nose, mouth and ears; that he had 
been severely whipped below the small of the back; that the 
blood appeared there; that several small switches and two or 
three large ones lay near, which appeared to have been much 
worn ; and a stick with a small end and a larger end, seemed 
to have been used. 

The further testimony on the part of the prisoner consisted 
of representations of the general bad character of the de¬ 
ceased, and of several particular offences with which the wit- 
nesses charged him. They also testified that Gray, his mas¬ 
ter, had whipped him six or seven weeks before his death, a 
thousand lashes; that Isaac shortly after ran away! and hav¬ 
ing been caught, he was committed to Raines by Gray, to be 
taken to Columbia jail. In addition to this, it was testified 
by other witnesses, (why not by Raines himself?) that said 
Raines was a “ humane man,” and “ of a good character,” 
and that Isaac was a very stout fellow. The court refused to 


* London Jhiti-Slavcry Reporter, vol. 5, No. 1, 



35 


WHIPPING UNLIMITED I.NTTHE UNITED STATES. 


35 


allow Raines “ the exculpatory oath.”* The judge charged 
the jury that Raines was not guilty of murder , but that 
he had given the negro undue correction , and was guilty 
of “ killing on sudden heat and passion.” The jury brought 
in manslaughter The whole Supreme Court afterwards de¬ 
cided upon argument that the exculpatory oath ought to have 
been admitted, and on this as well as other grounds, Raines 
was entirely cleared. 

This case occurred in 1826. There is a vast deal in it to 
reflect upon. Note the admission by the court of the interest¬ 
ed statements of the prisoner as evidence in his own favor, 
while not a word of the dying declarations of the slave was 
given to the jury. And yet the Chief Equity Judge of South 
Carolina tells us that slaves cannot be put to death , they can¬ 
not be tortured in that State. 

“ Earth is sick, 

And Heaven is weary of the hollow words, 

Which States and kingdoms utter, when they talk 
Of truth and justice.” 

The law reports of the other slave States disclose similar 
enormities. From all that I have read and heard upon the 
subject of whipping done by masters and overseers to slaves 
in our country, I have come to the conclusion that some 


* To let the reader know what is meant by this new-fangled oath., 
I extract a piece from a South Carolina Law of 1740, which is still in 
force, and answers the same purpose of screening and encouraging 
murder, as the Examining Court does in Virginia, and as the direct 
sanctioning of crimes in the laws of Georgia and North Carolina : 

“ If any slave shall suffer in his life, limbs or members, when no 
white person shall be present, or being present, shall neglect or refuse 
to give evidence concerning the same, in every such case, the owner or 
other person who shall have the care and government of the slave, 
shall be deemed and taken to be guilty of such offence ; unless such 
owner or other person can make the contrary appear by good and suf¬ 
ficient evidence, or shall, by his own oath, clear and excul¬ 
pate himself, which oath every court where such offence shall be 
tried, is hereby empowered to administer, and to acquit the offender 
accordingly, if clear proof of the offence be not made by two witness¬ 
es at least, any law, usage, or custom to the contrary notwithstand¬ 
ing.”—2 Brevard’s Dig. 242. 

Observe the preposterous character of the concluding clause. The 
exculpatory oath is authorized only in case that no white person was 
present, or if present, is unwilling to testify (just as though courts could 
not coerce !), and yet the legislators of Carolina used the miserable af¬ 
fectation of supposing what is excluded by the very conditions of the 
oath, that two whites were present and may appear after the oath is 
taken, and the prisoner acquitted ! This flimsy cover of an atrocious 
feature, is like a winding sheet upon Death—it renders the grim tyrant 
more hideous. 



36 MURDER PUNISHED BY THE ANCIENTS. 36 

hundreds of cartichips and cowskins , instruments which 
I am told make the skin fly like feathers, and cut fre¬ 
quently to the bone, are in perpetual daily motion in the 
slave States. To effect so much whipping, there must 
be many hands employed in all the working hours. I have 
no doubt, also, that many die annually of this and other spe¬ 
cies of torture. The southern papers, notwithstanding the 
extreme timidity of the press there, frequently contain para¬ 
graphs as long as a thumb nail, stating cases of death by 
whipping or other barbarity. There must be very many of 
which we never hear a word. I may be mistaken, but I be¬ 
lieve that the annual number of colored people who come to 
an untimely end in consequence of “ due correction,” and 
“ moderate whipping,” or confinement, and privation of food, 
must be great beyond any conception which we have formed 
upon the subject. But the number, more or less, is not materi¬ 
al. A single instance permitted by a community to go unpun¬ 
ished, would show the state of things, and ought to arouse the 
attention and excite the active exertions of the whole country. 

The cases which have already been stated would satisfy 
you, without the addition of another word, that the killing 
of slaves may be carried on with impunity at the south. If 
the slaves were given over to their masters and drivers to be 
dealt with as they please, but with the condition to spare life, 
and with a certain and condign punishment for the breach of 
the condition, their lot would be comparatively happy. But 
no such condition is imposed in this republic. It is true that 
in all the slave States they do pretend to place the murder of 
a colored person on the same footing as that of a white; but 
in a multitude of cases which have come to my knowledge 
through newspapers, law reports, conversation and private 
letters, I never heard of a white man being impartially pun¬ 
ished for the murder of a colored man. The severest pun¬ 
ishment in such case, that I ever heard of, was that of one 
Thomas J. Bond, of Maryland, who, for the murder of a ne¬ 
gro, was sentenced to twelve years’ imprisonment in the pen¬ 
itentiary. I will venture to predict that he will not stay his 
time out. It would be a wonder if he were not pardoned al¬ 
ready. 

By the law of Athens, the murder of a slave was punished 
like any other murder. The commandment, “ Thou shalt 
not kill,” does not discriminate between the killing of a 
noble and a bondman. It is strange that slaveholders and 
their abettors, who must be aware that slavery in this 
country involves murders without number or end, do never 


37 MURDER OF SLAVES PUNISHED AT ATHENS AND ROME. 37 

think of this most familiar text, when seeking, as they often 
do, to clothe the deformity of their practices, 

“ With old odd ends stolen forth of holy writ.” 

The civil Jaw protected the lives of slaves.* It is true 
there was a time at Rome, when a master had the power of 
life and death. But there was an excuse for the Romans, 
which cannot be pleaded for us. Their original slaves were 
prisoners of war. The right existing originally to put them 
to the sword on the field of battle, was supposed still to apper¬ 
tain to the captor, or to be transferred by him to the holder. 
If slaves were afterwards made such, for debt or for crime, it. 
is not singular that they should all have been brought under 
the laws and customs previously established for their caste. 
But this sanguinary principle was greatly assuaged, in the 
worst of times, by the power which every slave possessed of 
getting and laying up money, loaning it on interest, and ran¬ 
soming himself. The power of life and death in the master, 
co-existing with that of ransoming himself in the slave, dif¬ 
fers from the power as exercised in the United States, as the 
situation of an unarmed man pushed at by an assassin in a 
narrow cell, differs from that of the same man in an open pas¬ 
sage, where he has a chance to escape by flight. But is it not 
monstrous, that Americans in the nineteenth century of the 
Christian era, and nearly in the fifth century of printing , 
should resort to the most barbarous stage of the barbarous 
and bloody slave code of Rome? To see that American re¬ 
publicans have rendered those laws still more barbarous and 
bloody ; to see that they have sundered from them those mild 
companions whose influence softened their harsh character, 
is a mortification and grief which I know not. how to express. 

So, again, in regard to Greek slavery. The Chancellor of 
Carolina goes for authority to the iron institutions of Lacedae¬ 
mon, while he entirely disregards the example of the wise 
and polished Athenians, the fathers of European civilization 
and literature. He treats the Athenians as if they were not 
Greek! In the condition and treatment of the Helots, who 
were unquestionably prisoners of war, the southern slavehold¬ 
ers can find precedents for their conduct and the conduct of 
their children toward their bondmen, and they can find them 
nowhere else in ancient or modern times.i But even here 


* The master of a slave killed by another, may prosecute him 
for a capital crime.— Inst. 4, 311. [Compare this with preceding note 
from Inst. 1, 8, 2.] 

t Plutarch's Lives , vol. 1, p. 141—2. 

4 



38 AMERICAN SLAVES TREATED AS DAD AS HELOTS. 38 

the parallel fails, because at Sparta the slaves were the prop¬ 
erty of the state, and, except at those seasons when they 
were turned out to give the young whelps of Sparta a taste 
of blood, they were in all probability removed from the cru¬ 
elty of individuals, and subject, in respect to tasks and pun¬ 
ishment, to the magistrates alone. It is certain that the num¬ 
ber of stripes was limited. In this, the Helots fared better 
than the slaves of the south ; but, like them, they were cut off 
from learning , and deprived of the natural nourishment of 
the soul. Slavites show by such measures, and not by their 
affected sneers and inhuman scoffs, what is their real opinion 
of the intellectual and moral faculties of the slave. They 
would not take such pains to repress the working of the spirit, 
if they did not fear its power. 

In Sparta, the slaves were compelled to drink until they 
were drunk, and then exhibited before the youth, in order 
to inspire them with a just abhorrence of intemperance. This 
coincides admirably with the impious theory that some de¬ 
fenders of the southern system have put forth, viz., that slave¬ 
ry is a valuable institution, because it enables those who be¬ 
hold it, the better to appreciate liberty !* The living side 
of a paralytic might as well say, that life is more warm 
and sensible in its flesh, by reason of the contrast with the 
side that is dead. 


* A learned and religious man, on hearing some passages from 
speeches of Mr. Hayne of South Carolina, and Mr. Roane of Vir¬ 
ginia, supporting this theory, made no reply, but casting down his 
eyes, exclaimed : “Devil! go back to Hell!” Surely, such princi¬ 
ples belong there, and to the beings who dwell there. They make 
one feel as if he were breathing its hot and thick atmosphere. Mr. 
Hayne pressed into his service the authority of Edmund Burke. 
Burke’s remark, thus strained to fit a foul thing, a thing utterly re¬ 
pugnant to his pure and elevated spirit, and to his known abhorrence 
of slavery, was made in the ardor of debate, and is to be taken with 
at least as much allowance as Mr. Calhoun claimed in his nullification 
speech last winter, for his tariff speech in the winter of 1816. But it 
must be acknowledged, that it does seem to imply, that there is 
something very ennobling in the effects of despotism upon despots. 
Burke’s argument led him to view a single point. If he had under¬ 
taken to survey all points, and state the general result, his conclusions 
would have been less flattering to slavites. I suppose that Burke 
meant to say, that men surrounded by slaves, and exercising unlimit¬ 
ed power over them, would manifest “ a more high and haughty spir¬ 
it” in defending and maintaining their power, their liberties and lux¬ 
uries, than a hard working and frugal farmer would to defend his 
fields, his fireside, and the right to enjoy them in peace and security. 
There is some plausibility in this, but very little truth ; and in the 
application which Mr. Hayne makes of it, no truth at all. The no¬ 
bility of all countries, are, as a class , habitually brave. An external 



89 TREATMENT OF HELOTS IMITATED ONLY IN U. S. 39 

It is strange that that awful censure of all just men, from 
Plato to Franklin, which the inhuman treatment of the Helots 
drew upon the Lacedaemonians and their lawgiver, did not 
deter “ the chivalry” of this country from reviving and ag¬ 
gravating it. The despotic governments of Charles, Eliza¬ 
beth, and the Louises, never thought of opening this store¬ 
house of precedents to justify barbarity. Those generous ty¬ 
rants appear to have thought that it was sufficient that adven¬ 
turers in the new world should treat bondmen like beasts 
for the purposes of gain, but not for taste and amuse¬ 
ment. Accordingly, we find neither these nor any other 
sovereigns of Europe, encouraging brutality by law. This 

sentiment of personal honor, pernicious as it generally, and false as it 
always is, serves to spur them to positions of danger, merely for the 
sake of danger. On occasions not involving any valuable social prin¬ 
ciple or evident duty, but merely selfish ambition, pride and per¬ 
sonal consequence, a nobleman, is more brave than a simple free¬ 
man. 

But let a case of duty and patriotism be presented to the industrious 
and modest yeoman and mechanic ; let their unsophisticated sense be 
convinced, and their wholesome blood be up, and I undertake to af¬ 
firm that there is no courage more unflinching, and none half so 
constant as theirs. The nobility may be seduced to- betray their 
country, as they often have been; but the industrious and inde¬ 
pendent cultivators and artizans have principles tough as their 
hands, and rigid as their muscles. Their spirits being aroused, and 
the cause approved, they will, as a class, display an intrepidity of 
soul, and a tenacity of purpose, as much superior to the vain hauteur, 
affected nonchalance, and ear-rubbed rashness of any puny whipster 
of quality, as bright silver is to blaek dross—to a caput mortuum in 
a bullet ladle. The Cavaliers and Roundheads furnish an illustra¬ 
tion. In fact, I may say, that they are the same parties somewhat 
modified by time and education, to which my comparison was intend¬ 
ed to apply. 

These are the remarks which have often been suggested to my mind 
by the haughty speech of Mr. Hayne, and the frequent taunts of 
southern planters respecting northern poltroonery. I look upon war¬ 
like courage as a very inferior virtue at best, and one which ought 
always to be subordinate to the civic virtues, but when it comes to be 
prized for its own sake, and leads on to danger, instead of waiting on 
duty, it then becomes a disgrace to individuals, and a scourge to fami¬ 
lies and communities. 

It will take more than u paper shots” (to use a phrase of Crom¬ 
well), to convince me that the northern men lack sterling courage, 
although they have been frequently routed in the Charleston Mercury 
and Columbia Telescope ; and constantly represented in all the nulli¬ 
fying newspapers in the attitude of running away like the southern 
slaves. 

Great things will be achieved by Yankee courage whenever they go 
forth with a heart in the cause. But until occasion calls, let them not 
“stand to their arms !” Without their valor the union would not 
have been formed nor defended. If they have fought at Louisburg, 




40 


MURDER ENCOURAGED BY LAW IN THE U. S. 


40 


the States of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and 
Georgia, whether they intended it or not, have certainly done 
in a palpable manner. When legislatures make statutes that 
“ killing by moderate correction” is not murder, as Virginia, 
North Carolina, Georgia, and Tennessee, have done, or when 
a legislature enacts that the killer of a man may exculpate 
himself by his own oath, (just as though the heart that would 
murder, would not perjure), then, I say, without meaning to 
exaggerate or to extenuate any thing, that those legislatures 
and those States do encourage murder, and that the citizens 
who do not use their best exertions to prevent or repeal such 
laws, are, individually and collectively, partakers in the gi¬ 
gantic guilt. Start not at this. It is truth; and it is time for 
us to look it full in the face, though it do petrify us with hor¬ 
ror, or sicken us with disgust. 

But there is another principle common to all the slave codes 
of the south, which renders murder perfectly easy and safe in 
the States which have not given express license to kill. It is 
that no slave can be a witness where a white is concerned.* * 
In all the slave States, therefore, if a master or driver bear 
malice towards a slave, he has only to withdraw from the eyes 
of white men, or in that peculiarly “ Christian” sovereignty, 
South Carolina, to have no whites present, who would “ be 
willing” to testify against him, and he may then kill at leisure. 

We are often told, in the same boastful spirit in which 
we are so prone to speak of ourselves in comparison with oth¬ 
er nations, that against all the possible evils and abuses of a 
power so absolute, there is ample security for the slave, and 
for the character of our country in the mildness and humani¬ 
ty of American masters.t 


Quebec, and Bunker Hill, and in every field of the revolution from 
Lexington to Yorktown; if they have stoutly borne the starry banner 
over every sea; let them continue to show in peace that appropriate 
courage, which more than once has saved the Union; that courage 
which is most difficult, and yet by the million is despised ; that courage 
which is most meritorious, but yet is rewarded by the foolish with 
contempt; that courage, in short, which is not afraid to be called 
coward,—not afraid to fear God! 

* Haywood's Manual of Laics of North Carolina , p. 530. Constitu¬ 
tion of Georgia, Art. 4, and 12. Laics of Tennessee, Act of Oct. 
23, 1799, &c. 

t Col Murat, son of the ex-king of Naples, who became a slave 
owner in Alabama, says, “that the slave is too much beneath his mas¬ 
ter to be an object of resentment,” and that, “ if the planter should 
be transported with passion and abuse his slave, he would lose forever 
the character of a gentleman.” Then it seems that some masters 
have been passionate and cruel, or it would not be known what they 



41 


MURDERS I It CAROLINA. 


41 


Has the Author of nature issued a new edition of man in 
the Southern States more correct than any preceding ? I be¬ 
lieve not. I suppose that southern masters are as good as we 
should be in their places. I suppose they are about as good 
masters as their slaves would be, if situations were reversed, 
and no better. I do not perceive that we republicans are free 
from the passions and vices to which all men are liable, or that 
we have as yet discovered a panacea for the diseases of the 
soul and the state. 

In the first place, the hare wish to have despotic power, af¬ 
fords a very bad augury for the use of it. No man nor set of 
men would insist upon having it, if they did not expect to 
abuse it. 

But we will not rest the case upon auguries. There is ex¬ 
perience, and there are facts to guide our conclusions on this 
subject. 

A series of murders committed by a slave owner near W<5od- 
ville, Mississippi, has lately been published in some of the 
few papers which dare publish such things. The man re¬ 
ferred to, has murdered five slaves within as many years, with 
perfect and entire impunity.* 

In South Carolina, according to their Judicial Reports, 
one Gee was indicted for murder, by shooting a negro boy. 
He was found guilty, and jined. The report of the case says, 
that “ the jury, after the closest evidence, brought him in 
guilty of murder.” He was worth nothing, and being com¬ 
mitted to jail, his counsel moved that he be admitted to the 
poor debtor’s oath, which, after argument, was refused. 
Charles Cotesworth Pinkney, who was the prosecuting officer, 
and a great advocate for slavery, acknowledged, in the course 
of his argument against the motion, that “ the frequency of 
the offence, which deserved death, was owing in a great meas¬ 
ure to the nature of the punishment.”! 

In another case, one Taylor was convicted of wilful mur¬ 
der of a slave, by deliberately shooting him, as he was sitting 
quietly in a boat. Taylor was Jined. This was in South 
Carol in a.| 

would lose by it. But suppose he has lost the character of a gentle¬ 
man, or never had it, what security has the slave then? Murat de¬ 
fends slavery zealously. His work is entitled, “ Esquise des Etats 
Unis. Paris, 1832.” 

* Professor Wright's statement. See New England Galaxy, of June 
8th, 1833. 

t Bay's S. C. Reports , vol. 1, p. 163. 

t McCord's S. C. Reports , vol. 2, p. 483. 

4 * 



42 negro-burning and nEgRo-sAooti^g in Ihe u. s. 42 

Mr. Stuart, the author of a new and excellent book of trav¬ 
els in the United States, relates a case which occurred in 
Charleston. One Slater, assisted by another person, deliber* 
ately bound a man slave, beheaded him, and threw his body 
into the dock. Slater was punished by jine. 

Burning slaves alive is not very uncommon in the slave 
States. Within two years, a case occurred in Alabama. The 
subject was a boy. He was charged with killing his master. 
The magistrate, without examination, gave him into the hands 
of a mob, who committed him to the flames.* If Mrs. Chap¬ 
man had happened to have a slave, Mina might have been 
now living like a gentleman. 

A negro-hunt seems a very common occurrence in the slave 
States. When negroes run away from the happiness which 
their masters say they enjoy at home, a hunt is immedi¬ 
ately set on foot. In the pursuit, with dogs and guns, there 
appears to be not the least hesitation in shooting the fugitives, 
or tearing them in pieces. I recollect an extract from a pri¬ 
vate letter written near Edenton, in North Carolina, two or 
three years ago, (before the Southampton insurrection), which, 
among other matters of no great moment, mentioned that they 
had had “ great negro-shooting lately.” 

I have heard of shooting negroes from trees with as little 
concern, and apparently with as keen a zest, as a Northern 
sportsman drops a squirrel or a quail. 

During the Southampton insurrection, many were killed 
who were unquestionably as innocent as the babe unborn. I 
have heard of one very affecting case. A party of horsemen 
started from Richmond with the just and noble resolution of 
killing every colored person they should meet in Southampton 
County, They arrived opposite the cabin of a free negro, who 
was hoeing in his field hard by. They called to him, and 
asked if that were Southampton ? “Yes,” said the negro, 
“ you have just crossed the line by yonder tree.” They shot 
him dead, and continued their trooping.f 

In South Carolina, within a year, a planter named Isabell, 
hearing some noise in the avenue leading to his mansion, 
which he supposed to come from negroes, stepped forth with 


* Terrible. A negro slave named William, is stated in a 9. C. 
paper to have been burned alive near Greenville, S. C., for the murder 
of a white man.— Phil. Gaz. } Aug. 1825. 

t Liberator, vol. 2, 1832. See, also, narrative of the Editor of the 
Richmond Whig, who was on duty in the militia in that insur¬ 
rection. 



43 DREADFUL MURDER B? A NEFHEW OF JEFFERSON. 43 

his gun and fired. On examination, he found he had killed 
a friend and neighbor !* 

I shall close the exhibition of facts which I proposed to pre¬ 
sent under this head, by referring to an awful case, related 
by the Rev. Mr. Rankin, in his Letters, in the following 
i words: 

“ Slave holders have the power of life and death over their 
j slaves. And some of them do exercise such power with per¬ 
fect impunity. It is undeniable, that some drive their slaves, 
nearly naked, through frost and snow, until they perish with 
cold, some gradually starve them to death, and some cause 
them to expire beneath the burden of excessive toil. Others 
whip them to death, in a manner that more than equals the 
cruelty of the most barbarous savages, and not a few murder 
them with clubs, axes and guns, or such like fatal weapons! 
It is undeniable, that in these several ways many slaves are 
murdered with the utmost impunity ! It is seldom that even 
so much as a prosecution is incurred by murdering them ; and 
I do not recollect of ever hearing of a single individual being 
executed for taking the life of his slave. I am persuaded 
there is as much humane feeling in Fleming County, Ken¬ 
tucky, as can be found in any slave holding section of country, 
of the same extent; and I think this will be readily admitted 
by all who are acquainted with the people of that County; and 
yet there is a certain individual, who, in consequence of an un¬ 
just suspicion, fell upon his poor old slave, beat him in the face, 
and mashed it in such a manner as soon terminated his life ; 
yet by it, he incurred not even so much as a prosecution! I 
mention this case, not because it. is either singular or novel, 
but because it happened in one of the most humane sections 
of one of the mildest slave holding counties, and therefore 
is well,calculated to show what is the real state of things, even 
where slavery wears its mildest aspect. It shows clearly that 
the system of slavery, in its best form, is fraught with the most 
horrid murders. 

I will close this part of my subject, by giving you an ac¬ 
count of one of the most terrible displays of slave holding 
power—one that ought to make every slave holding nation 
tremble, and one that must fill every humane bosom with hor¬ 
ror ! I will give it just as I received it from the pen of the 
Rev. William Dickey, who is well acquainted with the cir¬ 
cumstances which he describes, and who is a man of undoubt¬ 
ed veracity: 


Liberator, vol. 2,1832, Dec. 29. Art. 11 Fruits of Slavery ." 





44 DREADFUL MURDER Blf A NEPHEW OP JEFFERSON. 44 

“ In the County of Livingston (Kentucky), near the mouth 
of Cumberland, lived Lilburn Lewis, a sister’s son of the ven¬ 
erable Jefferson. He, ‘ who suckled at fair Freedom’s breast,’ 
was the wealthy owner of a considerable number of slaves, 
whom he drove constantly, fed sparingly, and lashed severely. 
The consequence was, they would run away. This must 
have given, to a man of spirit and a man of business, great 
anxieties until he found them, or until they had starved out, 
and returned. Among the rest, was an ill-grown boy, about 
seventeen, who, having just returned from a skulking spell, 
was sent to the spring for water, and, in returning, let fall an 
elegant pitcher. It was dashed to shivers upon the rocks. 
This was the occasion. It was night, and the slaves all at 
home. The master had them collected into the most roomy 
negro-house, and a rousing fire made. When the door was 
secured, that none might escape, either through fear of him 
or sympathy with George, he opened the design of the inter¬ 
view, namely, that they might be effectually taught to stay at 
home, and obey his orders. All things being now in train, 
he called up George, who approached his master with tlm 
most unreserved submission. He bound him with cords, and, 
by the assistance of his younger brother, laid him on a broad 
bench, or meat block. Lie now proceeded to 'whang off 
George by the ancles!!! It was with the broad axe!—In 
vain did the unhappy victim scream and roar! He was 
completely in his master’s power. Not a hand among so m»- 
ny, durst interfere. Casting the feet into the fire, he lectured 
them at some length. He whacked him off below tire 
knees! George roaring out, and praying his master to begin 
at the other end ! He admonished them again, throwing 
the legs into the fire! Then above the knees, tossing the 
joints into the fire ! He again lectured them at leisure. The 
next stroke severed the thighs from the body. These were 
also committed to the flames. And so off the arms, head and 
trunk, until all was in the fire! Still protracting the intervals 
with lectures, and threatenings of like punishment, in case 
of disobedience, and running away, or disclosure of this tra¬ 
gedy. Nothing now remained, but to consume the flesh and 
bones; and for this purpose the fire was briskly stirred, until 
two hours after midnight. When, as though the earth would 
cover out of sight the nefarious scene, and as though the great 
Master in heaven would put a mark of his displeasure upon 
such monstrous cruelty, a sudden and surprising shock of 
earthquake overturned the coarse and heavy back wall, com¬ 
posed of rock and clay, which completely covered the fire and 



45 SLAVES ALLOWED LEARNING AT ATHENS AND ROME. 45 

the remains of George. This put an end to the amusements 
of the evening. The negroes were now permitted to disperse, 
with charges to keep this matter among themselves, and nev¬ 
er to whisper it in the neighborhood, under the penalty of a 
like punishment. When he retired, the lady exclaimed, ‘ O ! 
Mr. Lewis, where have you been, and what have you done V 
She had heard a strange pounding, and dreadful screams, and 
had smelled something like fresh meat burning ! He said 
that he had never enjoyed himself at a ball so well as he had 
enjoyed himself that evening. Next morning, he ordered the 
negroes to rebuild the back wall, and he himself superintend¬ 
ed the work, throwing the pieces of'flesh that still remained 
with the bones, behind, as it went up, thus hoping to conceal 
the matter. But it could not be hid—much as the negroes 
aeemed to hazard, they whispered the horrid deed to the 
neighbors, who came, and, before his eyes, tore down the wall, 
and finding the remains of the boy, they testified against him. 
But before the court sat, to which he was bound over, he was, 
by an act of suicide, with George, in the eternal world. 

“ Sure, there are bolts, red with no common wrath, to blast 
the man. WILLIAM DICKEY. 

“ 13loomingsburg, Oct. 8, 1824. 

“N. B. This happened in 1811, if I be correct, the 16th of 
December. It was the Sabbath !” 

“ This awful scene of cruelty exhibits what tremendous 
tilings the slave holder may do! And though the dreadful 
wretch was taken up on suspicion, and bound over to court, 
yet, I apprehend there was little probability of his actually 
falling under the sentence of the law.* He might have 
eventually, so managed the matter, as to make the sentence 
fall upon the heads of his slaves. But be that as it might, it 
is certain that the State, by making men his property, gave 
him the opportunity of perpetrating the horrid deed, and 
therefore it stands first in the list of crimes!” 

It must be constantly borne in mind that such barbarities 
are permitted, in addition to those which the law executes 
upon the colored people. 

In Greece and Rome, slaves might not only learn to read 
and write, but they were encouraged so to do,f and many of 

* This apprehension is rendered veiy probable, by the fact that the 
populace actually let him out of prison, in order to screen him from 
justice. 

t Such as had a genius for them, were sometimes instructed in 
literature and the liberal arts.— Cic. Hor. Ep.IL 27< 




46 THE ALPHABET “AN UNLAWFUL ASSEMBLY*’ IN THE U. S. 46 


them became learned men, fine artists, and attained to the 
highest reputation and respect. Terence was an African, 
and a slave at Rome. ASsop was a slave at Athens. Slaves 
were private tutors of their masters’ children. In our Repub¬ 
lic, and under “ the benign influence of Christianity,” slaves, 
and even free colored persons, are forbidden to learn to read 
and write, under penalty of being dispersed, as “ an unlaw¬ 
ful assembly,” and of receiving twenty lashes , to be given 
by any sworn officers, with such assistance as they may call. 
These are authorized by law to enter and disperse any as¬ 
sembly for that purpose. * In all the South, the patroles, cer¬ 
tain armed gangs, have a like authority, and I am informed 
they exercise it in the most savage manner, and that the sol¬ 
diers of the patroles, which are a species of standing army, 
are the lowest, most ignorant, and most intemperate white 
men to be found in the southern States, f The same civil 
and military officers, soldiers and assistants, have a similar 
authority as to assemblies of colored persons, bond or free, 
convened for religious worship. They may break in upon 
them, and inflict thirty-nine lashes upon each individual. J 

In North Carolina, to teach a slave to read or write, or to 
sell or give him any book or pamphlet, is punished with thirty- 
nine lashes, or with imprisonment, at the discretion of the 
court, if the offender be a free negro; and with a fine of $200, 
if a white. The reason set forth in the preamble to the North 
Carolina law, is, that “ teaching slaves to read and write tends 
to excite dissatisfaction in their minds, and to produce insur¬ 
rection and rebellion.” § 

In Georgia, if a white teach a slave, free negro, or person 
of color, to read or write, he shall be fined not exceeding 
8500, and imprisoned at the discretion of the court. If a 
slave, free negro, or colored person, teach any other slave, 
free negro, or colored person, he shall be fined and whipped* 
or fined or whipped at the discretion of the court. || 

I am unable to specify the recent improvements of South 
Carolina, because, for a few late years, the laws of that State 
have not been transmitted to the government of Massachu- 


Statutcs of Virginia , 1830. Ch. 29, §4. (A similar law was 
passed first in Virginia, in 1803.) 

t Stuuits Three Years. Verbal information from gentlemen who 
have been in South Carolina, agrees with and goes beyond Stuart, as 
to the profligate and reckless character of the patroles, 

X Statutes of Virginia, 1831. Ch. 22, §2. 

§ Statutes of JVorth Carolina, 1830—1, Ch. 4. 

I] Statute of Georgia , Dec. 22,1829. 





47 printing punished with death in the v . s. 47 

setts, in exchange for our own, agreeably to an excellent ar¬ 
rangement proposed by this State some twenty years ago. All 
accounts which I have read of them, however, concur in rep¬ 
resenting the new enactments to be even more severe than 
those of Virginia and North Carolina. I learn by Brevard’s 
Digest, that teaching slaves to write was prohibited under pen¬ 
alty of ,£100 in that State, nearly one hundred years ago, viz., 
in the year 1740. * Reading and writing are now prohibited, 
under heavy penalties, to all colored persons. 

The acquisition of Louisiana has increased the oppression 
of the people of color, as much as it has increased our terri¬ 
tory. The establishment of republican government there, has 
been, directly and indirectly, a sore calamity to the colored 
man ; directly, because it has increased despotism twofold, 
and indirectly, because it has opened a new and insatiable 
market for slaves, has increased their value, riveted afresh 
their chains, and caused increased activity of slave traders and 
kidnappers in every other State. Louisiana has departed so 
far from the comparatively mild regime of the Spanish slave 
colonies, that she has at length rivalled, if not surpassed, the 
tyranny of the neighboring slave republics. 

When I have sometimes attempted to shame our country¬ 
men, by holding up the examples of gentleness and kindness 
towards colored people, which the Spanish colonies and the 
South American States afford, I have been repeatedly answer¬ 
ed that those people are very differently situated from us; that 
they have a population so mixed as to be almost homogeneous'; 
and that individuals, of whatever origin, differ but little in col¬ 
or. They do not differ so little but that lynx-eyed prejudice 
can discern a difference between them, the moment they set 
foot on this shore ! But, admitting the reason to be sound, 
why should it not apply to Louisiana? There is not a more 
mixed population in America; there never was any where, 
since the building of Babel. 

In Louisiana, the punishment for teaching a slave to read 
or write, is twelve months’ imprisonment. For any person to 
write, print, publish or distribute any thing having a tendency 
to produce discontent among the colored people, or insubordi¬ 
nation among the slaves, is an offence punishable with impris¬ 
onment for life , or with death , at the discretion of the court. 

* Brevard's Digest of S. C. Laws , 243. [Yet Mr. Finley, in the 
discussion with Prof. Wright at the Park Street Church, asserted thai 
the laws prohibiting reading and writing, were caused by Garrison’s 
paper. Mr. Garrison’s paper, and Mr. Garrison too, may reply, like 
the lamb to the wolf, “Ah, Sir, I was not born then.”] 



48 u tendencies” punished With Death in tHfi tf. s. 48 

As a suitable commentary on the great and dangerous vague¬ 
ness of the southern laws on such subjects, I will cite another 
provision of the Louisiana law of 1830, and request you to 
compare it and the one last mentioned, with North Carolina’s 
anathema against the ABC, and against any book, in¬ 
cluding, of course, the Holy Scriptures! In the opinion of 
North Carolina, these “have a tendency to excite dissatisfac¬ 
tion in the minds” of the animals called negroes, though 
they have been taught to pigs and parrots without peril, from 
time immemorial! “ If any person in Louisiana, from the 

bar, bench, stage, pulpit, or any other place, or in conversa¬ 
tion, shall make use of any language, signs, or actions, hav¬ 
ing a tendency to produce discontent among free colored peo¬ 
ple, or insubordination among the slaves, such person shall be 
punished with imprisonment from three to tioenty-one years, or 
with death, at the discretion of the court.” * 

It is a pity that the Louisianians have said so much about 
Gen. Jackson’s martial law; no martial law ever equalled 
this. There is nothing in the annals of tyranny which sur¬ 
passes it. Reflect upon the language of this statute, (and it 
is also the language of Virginia, North Carolina, South Caro¬ 
lina, Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi, for the crimes which 
they all talk of are not acts, but only tendencies to cause acts), 
and see what a latitude of construction it admits. It may 
embrace, as we have an instance in the preamble of the North 
Carolina act, any book, pamphlet, sentence, word, or a let¬ 
ter of the alphabet! It is an India rubber phraseology, which 
may contract to the size of a thumb nail, or stretch around the 
neck. 

And we are the people who parrot about liberty and equali¬ 
ty, and the British yoke, and Tiberius and Nero! The 
standing illustration of Nero's tyranny was, that he issued 
and executed edicts which he caused to be fixed so high that 
the subjects could not read them. Yet, it cannot escape ob¬ 
servation, that if one man could stick them up, another could 
ascend to read them. But what shall we say of this mass of 
sanguinary laws, of which it is one of their principal provis¬ 
ions, that they shall remain a sealed book to the poor slave and 
his children for ever! to him and them who are to be affected 
by them ? The annals of the world afford nothing which ex¬ 
ceeds this. 

In the United States, a slave of any age or sex may be torn 
from relations and friends, by day or night, to satisfy a pecq- 


Statute of Louisiana, March 16, 1830. 




49 NATURAL AFFECTION RESPECTED IN W. I., BUT NOT IN U. S. 49 

niary demand against the master. The British slave code of 
1831, totally prohibits separation of husband and wife, and 
parent and child under sixteen years of age. Even the Ja¬ 
maica slave code, framed by an assembly of slave holders, 
provides that families taken in execution shall not be sep¬ 
arated, and that slaves shall not be levied upon on Saturday , 
any more than on Sunday. The Code Noir forbade the sale of 
husband, wife, and minor children, or to seize slaves for debt, 
except for the purchase money of the same slaves.* 

You have already seen that even emancipated persons in 
the United States are liable to seizure for any old debt of their 
emancipator. This liability to be torn from relatives by seiz¬ 
ure or sale, is restricted everywhere except in this Republic. 
It is true that we have here no legal marriages of slave^f Yet 
the slaves of the South do form connubial relations, which 
greatly soften the severity of their lot. A little family rises 
up to rejoice at the parent’s coming at eventide. Their infant 
shouts, their tottling haste to meet his arms, and their joyous 
welcome, restore the sense that he is a man, which whips 
have taken away. He feels that his being, “ though full of 
pain,” is not wholly worthless. His cabin has its comforts. 
He brings home food, and the little society is cheered. He 
lays him down to rest. The deep sleep of weariness sinks 
his senses in forgetfulness of the present, and shows him in 
dreams blest visions of the future. Meantime the future 
comes, and is gone. His babes are missing from his side, they 
are upon the waves, they have disappeared for ever from his 
sight; while he^ chained for life, in a narrow circle, cannot 
even have the consolation of wandering over the earth in 
search of them. 

The internal slave trade of the United States has all the 
characteristics of the foreign, except alone “ the middle pas¬ 
sage.But I am yet to learn that a voyage from the Ches¬ 
apeake Bay to Georgia, Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, or the 


* London Anti-Slavery Reporter , vol. 3, No. 2. Ib., No.. 1. Enc. 
Jur., Art. Esdavage, p. 334. 

f By the Code Noir, marriages of slaves are sacred as other mar¬ 
riages.— Enc. Jur., Art. Esclavage , p. 322. London Anti-Slavery Re¬ 
porter, vol. 5, No. 1. 

X u Thomas Clarkson states, in his History of the Abolition of the 
Slave Trade, that the arrival of slave ships on the coasts of Africa, is 
the uniform signal for the immediate commencement of wars for pro¬ 
curing prisoners, for sale and exportation to America and the West In¬ 
dies. °In Maryland and Delaware, the same drama is now performed 
in miniature. The arrival of the man-traffickers, laden with cash, at 
their respective stations , near the coasts of a great American water, 



59 INTERNAL SLAVE TRADE IN U. S. AS BAD AS IN AFRICA. 50 

Texas, is likely to be much more pleasant, while it lasts, than 
any other slave voyage. I am informed by credible persons, 
that the slave traders take just so much care of their mer¬ 
chandize, in its passage from market to market, as is necessa¬ 
ry for its preservation, and no more. Whatever they can 
economize in this respect, is clear gain, added to the difference 
of value indifferent markets. If African slave traders afford 
for daily allowance a decayed yam, and a pint of water, it is 
highly probable to my mind that American slave traders 
will not do much better. No law with us proportions the num¬ 
ber they shall carry, to the reasonable and comfortable capaci¬ 
ty of the vessel, as the English laws did, in respect to the Af¬ 
rican slave trade, long before it was abolished.* No law 
obliges the American captain or owner to provide a sufficient 
stock of wholesome provisions “ for each and every passen¬ 
ger,” during the voyage. Congress have found it necessary to 
tie up, by strong statutes, the avarice of captains, who bring 
white emigrants into our ports, or carry white passengers from 
them.f They have been obliged, by known instances of cru¬ 
elty to Irish and other passengers, to prescribe the ship room 
and the provisions, which each passenger shall be entitled to 
have, and they have laid captains and owners under no less a 
penalty than the forfeiture of the vessel, if they fail to comply 
with the law. This we do for those who have some power to 
assert their own rights, and are not cut off by inhuman custom 
and prejudice from the common offices of humanity. But as 


called justly, by Mr. Randolph, 1 a Mediterranean sea,' or at their sev¬ 
eral inland posts, near the dividing line of Maryland and Delaware, 
(at some ot which they have grated prisons for the purpose), is 
, the well known signal for the professed kidnappers, like beasts of 
prey, to commence their nightly invasions upon the flocks ; extending 
their ravages, (generally attended with bloodshed, and sometimes with 
murder), and spreading terror and consternation amongst both free¬ 
men and slaves, throughout the sandy regions, from the western to the 
eastern shores. These ‘ two-legged featherless animals,' or human 
blood-hounds, when overtaken (rarely) by the messengers of law, are 
generally found armed with instruments of death, sometimes with pis¬ 
tols with latent spring daggers attached to them ! Mr. Cooper, one of 
the representatives to Congress from Delaware, assured me that he had 
often been afraid to send one of his servants out of his house in the 
evening, from the danger of their being seized by kidnappers.” 

“ While at Wilmington, (Del.), I accidentally heard a black woman 
telling the gate-keeper of the bridge, that she had set out to go to 
Georgetown, (Del.), but was returning without having reached it, for 
fear of being caught on the road by the kidnappers.”— Torrey's Por¬ 
traiture, p. 47. 

* Clarkson's History of the Abolition of the Slave Trade, vol. 2, p. 98. 
t Laws of United States, 1819, Ch. 170. 



51 SLAVE-TRADING DEATH IN G. BRITAIN *, BRISK IN U. S. 51 

\ 

to poor slaves, who have no protection but what legislators may 
deign to throw around them, they are magnanimously aban¬ 
doned to the tender mercies of the slave trader, (a character 
held infamous even among slavites), and to the voluntary 
kindness of those captains and owners of vessels, who have cu¬ 
pidity enough to engage in this cruel business. 

In the year of 1827, the internal slave trade in the empire 
of Great Britain ceased for ever.* Now, it is death to carry 
on a domestic , as much as to carry on the foreign slave trade. 
Yet, do we still permit the wicked traffic to go on in this coun¬ 
try. It is the most brisk of all under the very droppings of 
the republican sanctuary. The District of Columbia is the 
grand mart for the sale of men. Kofle after kofle are collect¬ 
ed in that wretched space, and driven, under the flourish of 
whips and the foldings of the flag, by the very doors of Con¬ 
gress. The clank of their chains makes fine harmony with 
the voices of pretty orators, who are up, praising liberty .f 
As the domestic ties and enjoyments of the slave may be 


* Nineteenth Annual Report of the British African Institution. 
t « Internal Slave Trade. John Woolfolk, of New Orleans, adver¬ 
tises ninety-eight negroes for sale, just received from Baltimore, by 
the brig Lady Munroe. Droves from 25 to 100, are frequently met 
with on roads leading south-west; and from 20 to 30 men are some¬ 
times fastened to one chain, and thus marched to market. ‘ 1 tremble,’ 
says Mr. Jefferson, ‘ when I think that God is just.’ ”— JViles’ Register , 
Aug. 20, 1825. _ . ' 

[The domestic is worse than the African slave trade, in this: that 
here fathers (white fathers) sell their own children. John Newton, 
who resided nine years in Africa, and was a slave trader, says he nev¬ 
er heard of such a thing there. See Gregoire, p. 70.] 

“ A white man, having married one of his slaves, who bore him sev¬ 
eral children, sold the whole of them together, as he would a drove of 
cattle; and it is said such instances are frequent. A gentleman from 
the South tried to sell his half brother, his father’s son by a slave, but 
was prevented by a citizen, who procured his liberty for the half bro¬ 
ker.”— Torrey's Portraiture of Domestic Slavery , p. 15. 

“ W. P. Stevens was arrested at Fredericksburg (Va.), for kidnap¬ 
ping, and offering for sale, a mulatto slave 7 years old, the child of his 
sister—a white woman !”— Liberator , vol. 2, No, 52, Dec. 29, 1832. 
Art. “ Fruits of Slavery.” 

“ Kidnapping. The Winchester (Va.) Republican has an interest¬ 
ing narrative of a case of kidnapping, in which a woman was rescued, 
though the wretch who sold her to a trader in human flesh, escaped. 
Dealing in slaves has become a large business. Establishments are 
made at several places in Maryland and Virginia , at which they are sold 
like cattle. These places of deposit are strongly built, and well supplied 
with iron thumb screws and.gags, and ornamented with cowskins and oth¬ 
er whips , oftentimes bloody. But the laws of these States permit the 
traffic, and it is suffered.’ —Niles’ Register, vol. 35, p. 4. 

“ August 30, 1828. 190 slaves were embarked at Baltimore for New 

Orleans.”— lb. 



52 CHASTITY OF SLAVES PROTECTED, EXCEPT IN U. S. 52 


suddenly anct hopelessly ruptured and destroyed by any sheriff, 
slave trader, or kidnapper, so may they, also, by the violence 
of the slave owner, his sons, his overseers, his friends and his 
visiters. From the legislation of Athens to that of Jamaica, 
no code, except ours, can be found, which does not at least 
profess to guard the persons of females Nowhere, except 
here , are they obliged, on pain of death , to yield themselves 
unresisting victims, and become as the beasts which perish. 
Those of you who have been in a college where there were 
Southern students, must have heard something of the practical 
effects of such a system. No doubt it was this, among other 


On the above fact, the editor remarks : “ They cannot forget that 

they have been forcibly separated from their wives, children, or pa¬ 
rents, and what was their home, humble indeed, and miserable enough, 
but still the place of their nativity, endeared by a thousand pleasant 
recollections, and home , though never so homely !” 

“ Slaves. The schooner Fell’s Point, Capt. Stagg, has been seized 
at New Orleans for smuggling slaves into New Orleans from the West 
Indies, and the Captain, supercargo and crew, were cast into prison 
for trial. The supercargo is said to be an old offender, and possibly 
now is about to meet with some reward of his black crimes.”— Niles’ 
Register, Aug. 27, 1825. 

[Even the grave and conscientious Mr. Niles can dismiss such a 
matter with a pun.] 

“ Domestic Slavery. According to New Orleans papers, there were 
imported into that port, during the week commencing on the 16th ult., 
from various ports in the United States, 371 slaves, principally from 
Virginia. 


Tribune, 

Sarah, 

Alexandria, 

141 

Baltimore, 

4 

United States, 
James Ramsay, 

Norfolk, 

150 

Baltimore, 

2 

Susan, 

Charleston, 

14 

Atlas, 

Do., 

60 

Total, 


371’ 


Niles’ Register, Oct. 22, 1831. 

“ The American brig Comet, belonging to Franklin Amfield, of Alex¬ 
andria, wrecked on Abaco, cargo ICO slaves; great excitement at Nas¬ 
sau, lest the slaves should be emancipated. They were kept on 
board the small vessels. Speaker went in his robes to wait on the gov¬ 
ernor, with an address against discharging them.”— lb., March 26,1831. 

Ex-President Adams, in presenting fifteen petitions of Quakers of 
Pennsylvania, for the abolition of slavery and the slave trade in the 
District of Columbia, said that ‘‘there was a slave trade carried on in 
the District, which he did not know but it might be abolished. But 
the abolition of slavery he did not wish to discuss, nor to hear discuss¬ 
ed there. If it were discussed, he should disclose the reasons why it 
would not have his support. He felt grateful to the Pennsylvania Qua¬ 
kers for their confidence in him ; but he would say to the House, and 
to those who committed their petitions to him, that the most salutary 
medicines, when unduly administered, were the most deadly poisons ” 

lb., Dec. 17,1831. 




55 chastity of slaves protected, except in r. s. 53 

things, but more particularly this, which made Jefferson so 
exclaim against the system.* 

We have seen that many of the tyrannical statutes of the 
slave States apply equally to free colored men as to slaves : 
the exclusion of their testimony prevails in all the slave States, 


[Did it not equally occur to Mr. Adams that “ the most deadly poi¬ 
sons,” when duly administered, are remedies, sometimes the only 
remedies, of desperate diseases P 

But at that time Mr. Adams was only thinking how he should de¬ 
liver himself pleasingly to the majority, and to the South. Strange 
that a man who had seen and felt so much of the effects of the spirit 
of slavery, should have condescended “ to sprinkle sugar on that bottled 
spider .” Mr. A. has, since that time, taken the stand which became 
his reputation, and the stations he has filled. There are more useful 
and important political truths in his minority report, than have been 
laid before Congress in any northern document since the Constitution 
was formed.] 

Extract from “ A Ramble of six thousand Miles through the United 
States of America ,” by S. A. Ferrall, Esq. London, 1832. 

“ During my stay (at New Orleans), Doctor-came down the 

river with thirty slaves, among whom were an old negro and negress, 
each between sixty and seventy years of age. This unfortunate old 
woman had borne twenty-one children, all of whom had been at dif¬ 
ferent times sold in the Orleans market, and carried into other States, 
and into distant parts of Louisiana. The Doctor said, in order to in¬ 
duce her to leave home quietly , that he was bringing her into Louisi¬ 
ana for the purpose of placing her with some of her children. ‘ And 
now,’ said the old negress, ‘ Aldo I suckle my massa at dis breast, 
yet now he sell me to sugar planter, after he sell all my children from 
me.’ The gvitleman was a strict Methodist, or 1 saint,’ and is, as I 
was informed, much esteemed by the preachers of that persuasion, be¬ 
cause of his liberal contributions to their support.” p. 194. 

“ Kidnapping free negroes is very common. It requires collusion 
between the seller and the buyer, as, in the regular trade, the dealer 
carries a certificate from the public authorities where the slave was 
purchased, and shows it when a purchaser presents himself.”—7Z>., p.61. 

* 11 The whole commerce between master and slave,” says Jefferson, 
u is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions, the most un¬ 
remitting despotism on one part, and degrading submissions on the 
other. The parent storms, the child looks on, catches the lineaments 
of wrath, puts on the same airs in the circle of smaller slaves, gives 
a loose to his worst of passions; and thus nursed, educated and daily 
exercised in tyranny, cannot but be stamped by it with odious pecu¬ 
liarities. The man must be a prodigy who can retain his manners and 
morals undepraved by such circumstances.”— Jefferson's JYotes on Vir¬ 
ginia. 

“ What an incomprehensible machine is man ! who can endure toil, 
famine, stripes, imprisonment, and death itself, in vindication of his 
own liberty, and the next moment be deaf to all those motives whose 
power supported him through his trial, and inflict on his fellow-men a 
bondage, one hour of which is fraught with more misery than ages of 
that which he rose in rebellion to oppose. But we must wait with pa¬ 
tience the workings of an overruling Providence, and hope that that is 

5 * 




54 


DEBAUCHERY Of SLAVE OWNERS IN U. S. 


54 


and, lamentable to relate, in one at least of the free States, viz., 
Ohio. The interdiction of the alphabet and Bible, extends to 
them in some of the slave States; and they are taken and 
deemed to be slaves in every one of the twelve slave States, 
until the contrary is proved. The lowest drunken white 

preparing the deliverance of these our suffering brethren. When the 
measure of their tears shall be full,—when their groans shall have in¬ 
volved heaven itself in darkness,—doubtless a God of justice will 
awaken to their distress, and, by diffusing light and liberality among 
their oppressors, or at length, by his exterminating thunder, manifest 
his attention to the things of this world, and that they are not left to 
the guidance of a blind fatality.”— Jefferson's Correspondence. 

[In respect to the prodigious debauchery which slavery occasions, 
few will believe the state of things so bad as it is. On this impor¬ 
tant point, therefore,I shall cite several recent authorities. I, however, 
consider Jefferson as an unequivocal and decisive authority as to the 
tendency of slavery to cherish and inflame every bad passion. No 
man ever had a better knowledge of the subject. 

The Rev.J. D. Paxton has published, at Lexington, Kentucky, with¬ 
in this year, a work entitled “ Letters on Slavery." This writer was 
formerly minister of a congregation at Cumberland, Virginia, and, in 
right of his wife, a slave holder. Having become, with his amiable 
companion, convinced that slave holding is a sin, he “ immediately” 
set about the work of repentance. He gave freedom to his slaves, and 
began to preach and write to others, very gently, howevetf, in favor of 
“immediate” repentance. This gave so great offence, that the con¬ 
gregation “ immediately” dismissed him with contumely. There was 
no gradualism in this. 

Mr. Paxton's work is full of good sense and good principle. His 
views are not mature on the Colonization Society ; but fqr an accurate 
and honest description of the evils of slavery, his book may be referred 
to with perfect confidence.] 

The following is an extract from Mr. Paxton’s work : 

“ Some slaves have, indeed, a marriage ceremony performed. It is, 
however, usually done by one of their own color, and, of course, is not 
a legal transaction. And if done by a person legally authorized to 
perform marriages, still it would have no authority, because the law 
does not recognise marriage among slaves, so as to clothe it wfith the 
lights and immunities which it wears among citizens. The owner of 
either party might, the next day or hour, break up the connexion in 
any way he pleased. In fact, these connexions have no protection, 
and are so often broken up by sales and transfers and removals, that 
they are by the slaves often called 1 taking up together.’ The sense 
of marriage fidelity must be greatly weakened, if not wholly destroy¬ 
ed, by such a state of things. The effect is most disastrous. 

“ But there is another circumstance which deserves our notice. 
What effect is likely to be produced on the morals of the whites, from 
having about them, and under their absolute authority, female slaves 
w T ho are deprived of the strongest motives to purity, and exposed to 
peculiar temptations to opposite conduct! The condition of female 
slaves is such, that promises and threatenings and management can 
hardly fail to conquer them. They are entirely dependent on their 
master. They have no way to make a shilling, to procure any article 
they need. Like all poor people, they are fond of finery, and wish to 



55 


debauchery of slave OWNER8 in u. s. 


55 


may seize, scourge and imprison a free negro as' a runaway 
slave, who, after a certain time, may be sold for a slave. This 
may be done even after he is proved to be free, if he cannot 
pay the expense of the whipping and imprisoning !! Here is, 
indeed, a reversal of the Roman law, which at all periods pre¬ 
sumed in favor of liberty, and put the burden of proof upon 


imitate those who are above them. What, now, are not presents and 
kind treatment, or the reverse, if they are not complying, likely to ef¬ 
fect on such persons? And the fact that their children, should they 
have any through such intercourse, may expect better treatment from 
so near relations, may have its influence. That the vice prevails to a 
most shameful extent, is proved from the rapid increase of mulattoes. 
Oh, how many have fallen before this temptation ; so many, that it has 
almost ceased to be a shame to fall ! Oh, how many parents may trace 
the impiety and licentiousness and shame of their prodigal sons, to the 
temptations found in the female slaves of their own or neighbors’ 
households ! Irregular habits are thus formed, which often last through 
life. And many a lovely and excellent woman, confiding in vows of 
affection and fidelity, trusting to her power over her devoted lover, has, 
after uniting her fate with his, and giving him all that a woman has 
to give, found, when too late, how incorrigible are those habits of rov¬ 
ing desire, formed in youth, and kept alive by the temptations and fa¬ 
cilities of the slave system. 

11 Now, when we read the repeated declarations that 1 fornicators and 
adulterers shall not inherit the kingdom of God,’ and call to mind the 
teaching of our Lord, that all intercourse between the sexes, except 
what takes place between one man and one woman in marriage faith, 
amounts to those crimes ; how can we, as believers in Christianity, up¬ 
hold a system which presents this temptation both to the bond and 
free, and yet escape a participation in the guilt?” p. 129. 

The Rev. John Rankin has the following, among other statements, on 
this “ delicate subject” : 

“ Again, slaves, in consequence of the manner in which they are 
raised, are generally prone to vicious indulgence, and many of them 
are exceedingly profligate : their master’s children often mingle with 
them, and not only witness their vicious practices, but also listen to 
their lascivious conversation, and thus from infancy they become fa¬ 
miliar with almost every thing wicked and obscene. And this, in con¬ 
nexion with easy access, becomes a strong temptation to lewdness. 
Hence it often happens, that the master’s children practise the same 
vices which prevail among his slaves; and even the master himself is 
liable to be overwhelmed by the floods of temptation. And in some in¬ 
stances the father and his sons are involved in one common ruin; net 
do the daughters always escape this impetuous fountain of pollution. 
Were it necessary, I could refer you to several instances of slaves act¬ 
ually seducing the daughters of their masters ! Such seductions some¬ 
times happen°even in the most respectable slave holding families!” 


80. 


Mr. Ferr all, whom I have before quoted, has the following passage : 

“ Negresses, when young and likely, are often employed as wet nurs¬ 
es by white people ; as also, by either the planter or his friends, to ad¬ 
minister to their sensual desires. This frequently is a matter of spec¬ 
ulation ; for if the offspring, a mulatto, be a handsome female, 800 or 
1000 dollars may be obtained for her in the New Orleans market. It 



56 TVRANNt TOWARDS FREE COLORED MEN IN U. S. 56 


the party claiming a dispensation of the laws of nature, and 
maintaining the doctrine that a man is not a man.* 

It is impossible to calculate the extent of the cruelty and 
wretchedness to which this single change, however small it 
may appear, has subjected the American negro. It taints the 
whole atmosphere. There is the same difference between the 
Roman and American slave law in this respect, that there is 
between having wholesome daily bread, and eating it without 
care, and having it poisoned, and being obliged to extract the 
poison before a morsel can be tasted, and, after all, eating it at 
the constant peril of life. And yet Judge Dessausure, in the 
very focus of wrong and outrage, tells us of the ameliorations 
which “ the benign principles of Christianity” have wrought 
ip the slave laws of Rome. 

But a multitude of enactments bear with an exclusive and 
ingenious severity upon the free people of color. 

If they preach the Gospel, they are punished with “ thirty- 
nine lashes.”t 


is an occurrence of no uncommon nature, to see a Christian father sell 
his own daughter, and the brother his own sister, by the same father.” 

FerralUs Rambles in the United States. 

Monsieur Murat, the latest champion of liberty that has been heard, 
thinks this species of liberty is very proper, as an offset to the suffer¬ 
ings of servitude, although he had, in a previous part of his book, de¬ 
scribed the of slaves as happy ! A s to the “ delicate subject” we are 
upon, these are his words : 

“ Quant a deshonorer les jeunes negresses cela serait eu effet cu- 
rieux. C’est en vain que leur modeste rougeur est cachee par le cou- 
leur de leur tint. Combien de fois ai-je appris avec effroi que mes 
jeunes amisavaiuet quitte le lit que mon hospitalite avait prepare pour 
aller se glisser dans le cotton house. Je craignais de voir le lendemain 
mon negre Virginius immoler sa fille Dolly...Mais pas du tout. Le 
bon pere etait trop sure de sa virtu. Je l’ai vu sourire autentateur et 
poliment lui demauder une chique de tabac comme pour se moquer de 
l'inutilite de ses efforts. Quaut a la virtu des vieilles negresses meres 
de families, qui aurait le courage de s’y frotter ? Loin que cet’ etat de 
choses soit une aggravation au sort des esclaves, je considere la liberte 
entiere dout ils jouissent sous ce rapport comme une espece de com¬ 
pensation de leur servitude.” 

The Code JYoir forbade masters w 7 ho were married to cohabit with 
their slaves.— Enc. Jur., Art. Esclavage. 

Rape committed against a slave, is a capital felony.— Jamaica Slave 
Code. See Anti-Slavery Reporter , vol. 5, p. CC. 

* Inst. 3, 12. 

t Any free colored person, ordained or not, to be punished thirty-nine 
lashes , and to be seized by any person, without warrant, for preaching 
or exhorting, at any religious meeting.— Statute of Virginia, 1831, clT. 
22 , § 1 . 

Any free colored person attending such preabhing or exhorting, to 
be punished thirty-nine lashes. — Ibid, §2. 



57 TYRANNY TOWARDS FREE COLORED MEN IN U. S. 57 

For a free colored man to practise medicine, is death, un¬ 
less lie prove that he did it with good intentions, and no bad 
consequence attended it.* * * * § 

If a free colored person keep a school, or send to school, he 
is punished with stripes.f 

If a free negro set foot within the territory of a slave State, 
or remain there, being emancipated, he is punished with stripes, 
imprisonment, and re-selling into slavery.| 

Free negroes, in slave States, cannot assemble together for 
any purpose, above the number of Jive or seven. They can¬ 
not go forth to walk, to breathe the common air, to look at the 
firmament of heaven, after 8 o’clock. 

In some parts of the South, free colored persons cannot trade 
out of the cities or towns where they reside, under penalty of 
losing their goods, and suffering “ thirty-nine lashes. 

Free colored persons are forbidden to enter a plantation, 
under the penalty of whipping by the owner or his overseers. || 


[The patroles and police officers usually lay on more than “ thirty 
nine lashes.” The limitation is utterly disregarded.] 

* Free negroes, for administering medicine, to be punished with 
death.— Statute of Virginia, 1819. Ch. 160, §25. 

t All meetings of free negroes or mulattoes for teaching reading 
and writing, to be taken and deemed to be unlawful assemblies, and to 
be broken, dispersed, and whipped by any sworn officer, twenty 
lashes, at the discretion of any justice of the peace.— Statute of Vir¬ 
ginia, 1830. Ch. 39, §4.— Brevard's Digest of Laics of South Caroli¬ 
na, vol. 2, p. 254. 

[There appears to be gross hypocrisy in the language of the statute 
of Virginia. The impression intended to be conveyed is, that the 
“justice of the peace” is to try the free colored persons accused of read¬ 
ing and writing, and to award sentence of “ twenty lashes” or under, 
at his discretion. But if the jumble of provisions be looked to closely, 
it will be seen that between the acts of breaking doors and dispersing 
such an assembly, which any sworn officer (that is, a sheriff, a deputy, 
a constable, an officer of militia, or of the patroles) may do, no trial, 
nor taking before a justice of the peace can intervene. I therefore 
concluded that the “ discretion ” was notin fact confided to the justice, 
but to the constable, patroles, &c. On inquiry, this turned out to be 
the fact. Nay more, “the discretion” is not, in practice, limited to 
“ twenty,” or any number of lashes. Respectable witnesses of all 
colors assure me, that drunken patroles, constables, and other sworn 
officers, pay no regard to the number of lashes prescribed by law, but 
whip from one to six hundred, as they think proper.] 

White persons meeting with free colored persons for the same pur¬ 
pose, to be fined $50 and imprisoned two months.— Ibid, §5. 

t Free negroes remaining in the State (Virginia) contrary to law, to 
be sold at the front of the court-house.— Statute of Virginia, 1830. Ch. 
29, §1. 

§ Statutes of North Carolina, 1830. Ch. 7. 

Jj Statutes of Virginia, 1819. Ch. ICO, §6. 



58 BRITISH COLORED SEAMEN PROTECTED IN U. S. 58 

In other parts, free colored persons cannot marry with 
slaves.* * * § 

In South Carolina, if a vessel arrive with any free colored 
persons on board, such persons are immediately seized and 
lodged in prison, and there detained until the vessel is depart¬ 
ing, when they are permitted to go, provided they first pay the 
expenses of their arrest and imprisonment. If the captain go 
and leave them, they are then sold to defray the expenses! 

In North Carolina and Georgia, vessels arriving with free 
colored persons on board, are subjected to quarantine from 
thirty to forty days, as if they had the cholera , and no commu¬ 
nication is at any time allowed between a free colored person 
and the shore. It has been decided judicially, that vessels 
may have as.many slaves in their crews as they please.t This 
law, adding so much to the previous injustice of slavery, origi¬ 
nated with South Carolina. I suppose it is a new fruit, by 
which we are to know those “ benign principles” of which her 
Chancellor boasts. I believe that neither ancient nor modern 
slavery affords the slightest precedent for a law of this kind. 
But the legislators of those States were not so transported with 
rage against free colored men, but that they remembered to 
be so prudent as to except free negroes arriving on board ves¬ 
sels of war. There might be danger in seizing the seamen of 
such vessels ; but I am not able to perceive why a free negro, 
coming on board a vessel of war, would be less likely to spread 
the infection of freedom, than one coming on board an un¬ 
armed vessel! 

Although this law in the very next year, viz., in 1S23, was 
decided to he unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of the 
United States, f yet, in the year following, four British colored 
seamen were taken from the ship Marmion and imprisoned in 
Charleston.^ The British government made a complaint at 
Washington, and our government (although their own tribu¬ 
nal, viz., Circuit Court for the District of South Carolina, a 
citizen of South Carolina, Judge Johnson^ presiding, had 
already settled the law), had the dignity and decency to resort 
to the Attorney General for an opinion ! He gave it against 
Carolina. No more was heard publicly of the seamen of the 
Marmion. I suppose they were “ thrust out privily.” Forty 


* Statutes of North Carolina, 1831. Ch. 4. 

t Statutes of North Carolina , 1830. Ch. 30. Statutes of Georgia , 
1828. Tit. Slaves. Statutes of South Carolina , Dec. 1822. 

t Judge Johnson s opinion. — A'iles' Reg., Aug. 23, 1823. 

§ Taking seamen from the Marmion. — Niles' Reg., Dec. 18,1824. 



59 COLORED SEAMEN OF THE FREE STATES UNPROTECTED. 59 

respectable masters of American vessels lying in the port of 
Charleston, whose men had been seized, and were then in 
prison, petitioned Congress for redress in 1823.* The peti¬ 
tion was referred to a committee, and that was the last that 
was ever heard of it. It appears to have been disposed of 
among a mass of matters, “ from the further consideration” of 
which, without their being particularly designated in the pub¬ 
lic journals, the committees “ were discharged.” But good 
men and patriots, who have the spirit to maintain the laws, 
will yet consider it. Citizens of free States,—Maine, New 
Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connect¬ 
icut, New York, and Pennsylvania,—have been seized and 
sold into bondage.f They were torn from the protection of 
that flag of which we boast; that flag which we expended 
millions, and sacrificed thousands of lives, to vindicate from 
outrage similar in kind, but not half as great in degree, and 
not half as barefaced! Some of them have been redeemed 
with the hard earnings of their wives, children or parents, at 
home ; aye, in Massachusetts,—in this very city. Some at this 
moment remain in bondage, nobody knows where. And this 
law continues to be enforced up to the present time ! Nay, 
other States are following up the bold and successful example, 
though with a little more caution. Thus the national govern¬ 
ment can interpose for British seamen, and rescue them from 
the hands of tyranny, but have not a word to say, they will not 
even ask the opinion of the Attorney General, for citizens of 
the United States—for citizens scourged by men as bad as Ver- 
res. This is that sensitive regard for “ sailors’ rights,” which 
moved the South to plunge the country into war! 

Why is all this sudden noise about nullification ? Every 
slave State has nullified, from ten to twenty years, the only ar¬ 
ticle of the constitution which protects our free fellow-citizens 
among them ; while, at the same time, they come and claim, to 
the last pound of flesh, the execution of the provision of the 
constitution which secures to them their property in slaves 
among us ! There is not a slave State into which a free color¬ 
ed citizen of a free State can set foot, without being seized, 
whipped, imprisoned, and, if his ransom be not paid, sold into 
perpetual slavery.^ But South Carolina, North Carolina, and 
Georgia, have nullified not only the Constitution of the United 


* Niles’ Register, March, 1822. 
t See Appendix. (B.) 

X The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the privileges and 
immunities of citizens in the several States.—Constitution of United 
States, Art. 4, §2. 



60 CONSTITUTIONAL AND NATIONAL LAW ‘ NULLIFIED’ IN U. 3 . 60 

States, but also the law of nations, and our treaties with every 
commercial people, both of the old world and the new. And 
yet we submit to it, and those same people, not satisfied with 
such abject pliancy, have threatened us with secession, and an 
alliance with Great Britain ; and, by their threatening and blus¬ 
tering, they calculate to drive us, as usual , to abandon every 
thing they require, and do every thing they bid. Let them try’an 
alliance with Great Britain, and let their first ambassador car¬ 
ry with his credentials a copy of their slave laws , and their 
laws for reducing to slavery the freemen of every nation, with 
a request that it be laid before Parliament, and referred to the 
Committee of Abolition. Belike it will promote the alliance ! 
There is not an independent nation on earth with which they 
could ally themselves, that would bear from them as many 
wrongs and insults as we have borne—we to whom they are 
bound, by duties superadded to the laws of nature and nations; 
or that would have yielded to them the tithe of what we have 
yielded. This may explain the reason of Jefferson’s giving to 
the South the generous and humane advice “ to keep us to 
quarrel with !” We are a good people to quarrel with. 

But then the Union, what will become of the Union, if we 
stand out, instead of submitting and pacifying our southern 
brethren? We all love the Union ; we revere the character 
and farewell advice of Washington. We are superstitious in 
our devotion to the Union. All this the slave States know, 
and they have played upon us by means of it. Our tried at¬ 
tachment to the Union is a bank of political power, upon which 
southern jealousy and ambition have made what drafts they 
please. But believe me, fellow-citizens, the Union cannot be 
preserved by such means. We may, by continuing this poli¬ 
cy, destroy all virtue and all self-respect in ourselves, but we 
cannot save the Union. That is to be preserved by justice, 
fidelity and fortitude ; not. by fear, not by treachery, not by 
the little politics of office-seekers, not by avarice and luxury. 
These vices have already sapped the foundation of the Union, 
and, if they are not arrested, they will speedily overthrow it. It 
is time for us to assume a manly bearing, just and consider¬ 
ate, towards our unreasonable countrymen, but at the same 
time steady and resolved in ourselves. 

The Chinese have a deep and peculiar reverence for their 
parents. A skilful warrior, making war upon that industri¬ 
ous and pacific people, placed their captive mothers in front 
of his Tartar hordes, so that the son could not strike ex¬ 
cept through the breast which nourished him. By this new 
engine of war, it was hoped to subdue without danger. And 


61 ERROR OF THE CONSTITUTION OF U. S. 61 

for a time the artifice was successful. But even the patient 
Chinese were at length aroused. To meet their invaders hand 
to hand, they made the awful sacrifice of objects beloved and 
sacred in their sight; but all too late. The tide of victory 
was too strong to be turned, and China was enslaved. The 
South have made the same use of the Union which Ghengis 
Khan made of the Chinese mothers. 

In the convention which formed our Federal Constitution, 
a distinguished Southern member said, that “ they could al¬ 
ways make their peace with the North for a hogshead of to¬ 
bacco.” I am for peace, but not purchased with a hogshead 
of tobacco, or a bag of cotton. The truth is, that the Rich¬ 
mond cabal, which seems to have established a branch in 
Charleston, has always relied much on this principle ; and to 
preserve that supremacy of the slave interest which they were 
debating about when that expression was uttered, they have 
not hesitated to place us repeatedly in the condition of a mouse 
under an exhausted receiver. 

We were wrong in admitting slavery into the Constitution^] 
in the beginning. It was a fly-blow in the blossom. For 
the sake of a little more amount of Southern direct taxes, 
which have never been laid ; for a little protection to com¬ 
merce, which was soon changed to persecution, and to ap¬ 
pease a spirit which cannot be appeased, we consented to sanc¬ 
tion the atrocious principle of property in human flesh—of sel¬ 
ling innocent fellow-citizens by the pound. What has been 
the consequence ? A perpetual struggle on the part of the 
South, and thus far a successful one, to maintain the ascenden¬ 
cy of that principle, and of the tyrannous power based upon it, 
at the expense of our hard-earned prosperity. Hence we had 
an unlimited embargo,—such a measure as was never inflicted 
before since the world begun,—upon the honest industry and 
lawful enterprise of a great and free people. Hence, too, we 
had the war. After that, we had the manufacturing system, 
while that system went to destroy commerce; but when it had 
executed its mission, and revolutionized our habits and em¬ 
ployments, then that also must be withdrawn. Let the sheep 
drink where it may, the wolf is determined to devour it. 

Say what we will about these troubles and losses; gloss and 
gloze as we can, they all come of slavery, and of the original 
sin of the Constitution in admitting it. The paltry price which 
we received for that suicidal act, has dropped from our fingers. 
Neither our interests nor our consciences have acquiesced. 
We consented to cement a union with the strong, by sacrific¬ 
ing the rights of the weak. God is against this whole business.; 

6 


62 


FREE INQUIRY THE FIRST STEP. 


62 


It has already converted part of the nation into madmen, and 
another part into something more harmless, but not more re¬ 
spectable. To be mad is not much worse than to be 
“ Frighted when a madman stares.” 

But how is the evil to be removed ? We all acknowledge its 
existence and its danger, but foolishly say there is no help for it. 

The first step is, to probe it to the bottom. Surgery pains, 
but it does not kill. A probe is better than a bayonet, which 
I am sure must come, if something be not speedily done. We 
have confirmed and encouraged this awful evil, by facing it 
with “ dough-faces.” We have steadily and coldly suppress¬ 
ed all free discussion, all independent judgment, in this mat¬ 
ter ; for we can be courageous in putting down individuals at 
home. The customary avenues to the public mind are closed. 
The pulpit and the press, which enlighten, and which are re¬ 
lied upon on other subjects, intercept every ray which would 
shine on this. The church doors are shut against us, because 
we come to speak for unhappy men who are not permitted to 
speak for themselves. This very hall, in which we are met, 
bears witness to the violence and fury with which our efforts 
are resisted. A meeting-house, for this occasion, could not 
be had. 

The press has betrayed its trust. What a noble opportuni¬ 
ty for dignifying the press, is lost! Editors will greatly regret, 
at no distant period, their silence and apathy, or rather their 
illiberality, for they will neither enter upon this inquiry, nor 
suffer others to do so. The expense of establishing new presses 
must be incurred, or a citizen cannot address his country¬ 
men on this most, momentous question. And if new presses 
are established, the conductors are not only left without proper 
legal protection, but also without that united and fraternal 
vindication, which editors owe and usually accord in favor of 
the common cause of free inquiry.* 


* It is certainly a remarkable fact, that the insolent, tyrannous and 
corrupting act of Georgia, has been noticed and condemned by so few 
Northern editors; in fact, they have been so silent about it, that many 
doubt its existence. To set this beyond dispute, I copy the act as 
follows : 

In Senate, November 30, 1831. 

Resolved, by the Senate and House of Representatives of the State of 
Georgia , in General Assembly met, That the sum of FIVE THOU¬ 
SAND DOLLARS be, and the same is hereby appropriated, to be 
paid to any person or persons who shall arrest, bring to trial, and 
prosecute to conviction under the laws of this State, the editor or 
publisher of a certain paper called the Liberator, published in the 
town of Boston , and State of Massachusetts ; or who shall arrest, 



63 


SAFE METHODS OF EMANCIPATION. 


63 


Next to examining the evil, is the proposing of a remedy. 
I am perfectly convinced that there is a remedy, a ready, safe 
and effectual remedy, within the reach of the slave holders of 
the United States. 

Experience points us to the way. The mass of our British 
ancestors were once slaves. They were feudal slaves, re¬ 
duced to that state by conquest. They could not, like the 
Southern slaves, be sold off of the estate where they were born; 
they could not be separated from wives, children and parents, 
which certainly was.some comfort. Still they were subjected 
to many degrading services and punishments. They might 
be killed, like the negro slaves, for slight cause, or no cause, 
and their murder was atoned for by paying a jine to the own¬ 
er. They could not, so late as the fifteenth century, go from 
town to tow n without a pass. In this, they were like the South¬ 
ern slaves. Like them, too, they could not hold property or 
be witnesses; but, unlike them, the chastity of their wives and 
daughters was protected from violence. As literature and the 
reformation broke upon the darkness of the middle ages, the 
English lords or slave holders saw the iniquity of the system. 
To the honor of the feudal lords, no obstructions were ever 
thrown in the way of emancipation. Emancipations were 


bring to trial, and prosecute to conviction under the laws of this State, 
any other person or persons who shall utter, publish or circulate with¬ 
in the limits of this State, said paper, called the Liberator, or any other 
paper, circular, pamphlet, letter or address, of a seditious character. 

And that His Excellency the Governor is hereby authorized and re¬ 
quested, to issue his warrant upon the Treasurer, for said sum of five 
thousand dollars, in favor of any person or persons who shall have ar¬ 
rested, and brought to trial, and prosecuted to conviction, under the 
laws of this State, the editor or publisher of the Liberator; or who 
shall have arrested, and brought to trial, or prosecute to conviction, 
under the laws of this State, any other person or persons who shall 
utter, publish or circulate, within the limits of this State, said paper, 
called the Liberator, or any other paper, circular, pamphlet, letter or 
address, of a seditious character. 

And that these resolutions be inserted in the appropriation act. 

And resolved, further, That His Excellency the Governor cause the 
foregoing resolutions to be published in the public journals of this 
State, and such other papkrs as he may think proper, and pay for 
the publication thereof, out of the contingent fund. 

Read and agreed to. 

THOMAS STOCKS, President. 

Attest, I. L. Harris, Secretary. 

In House of Representatives. Concurred in, Dec. 24, 1831. 

ASBURY HULL, Speaker. 

Attest, W. C. Dawson, Clerk. 

Approved, Dec. 26, 1831. 


WILSON LUMPKIN, Governor. 



64 


SAFE METHODS OF EMANCIPATION. 


64 


continual. They were also quiet, led to no disorders, and 
there was soon universal enfranchisement in England. The 
last was executed by Elizabeth on the crown domains. The 
last claim of villeinage on record was made in the following 
reign. And now the soil of the British Islands has that estab¬ 
lished virtue in it, that the moment a slave sets his foot upon it, 
his chains fall for ever. 

In France, the same process was gone through ; and there 
are now no slaves there. So in Spain, Portugal, Sweden, Den¬ 
mark, Prussia,* Austria and Germany. 

In Poland, emancipation was begun by an individual noble¬ 
man, about forty years ago. His neighbors were in consterna¬ 
tion when he broached his project. They said that he would 
make vagabonds, thieves and assassins, of obedient serfs. But 
he persevered, and they took great care to guard against the 
contagion of the example. But their fears subsided. The serfs 
were not turned out to shift for themselves. The master 
wanted their labor, and they wanted employment. They be¬ 
came free tenants at reasonable rent, of suitable farms on the 
estate. The change in their condition, and in the general 
face of things, is described as enchantment. They soon had 
neat and comfortable houses, instead of wretched hovels; good 
clothes, instead of rags; wholesome, fresh and abundant food, 
instead of grain and garbage distributed in masses. The es¬ 
tate, in comparison with those around it, was likened to an 
oasis in the desert. But what was most important of all, the 
morals and manners of the serfs were as much improved as 
their physical condition. They were contented and grateful. 
They said they had now something to live for. The same 
nobleman extended the system to his other estates, and he has 
been imitated so far, that villeinage, or feudal slavery, ceased in 
Poland Proper nearly thirty years ago. In Russian Poland, it 
still continues, but manumissions have been frequent, and 
were encouraged by the example of the late emperor. All 


* Lord Dover, in the Life of Frederick the Great, after stating that 
the Prussian serfs were incapable of holding property, contracting 
marriages, &c., says : 

“ Frederick was determined, if possible, to put an end to this de¬ 
grading and disgraceful state of things; but, in so doing, he found 
great obstacles, not only on the part of the feudal lords, but also from 
the peasants themselves, who were so sunk in ignorance that they 
dreaded any change. He commenced, however, his ameliorations in 
the wisest way, viz., by giving up all the lights of servitude over the 
peasants on the domains of tile crown. His example was, by degrees, 
followed by various Prussian proprietors, and finally, in 1776, when he 
thought his people were better prepared for it, he abolished servitude 
throughout his dominions by aspeeial edict.” Yol, 1 , p, 483» 



G5 SAFE METHODS OF EMANCIPATION. 65 

the military colonies and all soldiers, by a certain term of ser¬ 
vice, are emancipated ; also, by passing satisfactorily through 
the course of, the academy of arts. 

In the year 1820, the emperor Alexander emancipated the 
entire population, 35,000, on the island of Oesel. Who has 
ever heard of any difficulty or disorder resulting from that 
step? 

Lafayette was commencing the emancipation of a large 
number of slaves in Cayenne , soon after his return from the 
war of freedom in America. This was consistent. So far 
from its being followed by disorderly or ungrateful conduct, 
on the part of the slaves, the reverse was most strikingly the 
fact. For when the slaves in that colony became free by the 
French constitution, somewhat before the consummation of 
Lafayette’s plan, his slaves, penetrated with love and gratitude 
for all that he had done and intended to do for them, made a 
voluntary offer to remain until he was indemnified. 

Bolivar emancipated 700 of his own slaves in the beginning 
of his career. Before his death, he emancipated the residue 
of them. Mexico abolished slavery totally and suddenly in 
1829. It was done on the principle of letting the slave work 
out the price of his freedom in the employment of his master, 
or of any other man, if he preferred it. The law abolished 
at once the master’s power of corporal punishment, and put 
those “ who had been looked upon as slaves,” (a very delicate 
and just expression, which was evidently selected for the pur¬ 
pose of discountenancing the idea that man can be the prop¬ 
erty of man), under the protection of the laws and the power 
of the magistrates. An American, who had been a slave 
owner in Mississippi, and gave an account of the effects of 
these measures, declared that, “ if he were to return to Mis¬ 
sissippi, and become a slave owner and planter there, he would 
emancipate as a means of making money.” The freedmen 
were made happy, and the master wealthy by it. Not the 
smallest disorder or difficulty occurred. The witness declared 
that the example was one of great importance to the United 
States. 

But it was not a new thing in Mexico. Mr. Ward, the 
British Minister, wrote to Mr. Canning a very interesting ac¬ 
count of an experiment in a large district of Mexico, to sub¬ 
stitute free for slave labor of the same men, upon the sugar 
plantations, which, under the new system, were producing 
sugar enough to supply the home consumption. Mr. Ward 
used nearly the same language then, as our countryman used 
later in regard to total abolition. He said that the example of 
6 * 


G(3 SAFE METHODS OF EMANCIPATION. 66 

those sugar planters was invaluable to England and her West 
India colonies ; the result having been profit and perfect secu¬ 
rity on one side, and industry, order and contentment, on the 
other. 

Guatemala abolished slavery in 1824, Columbia in 1821,* 
Peru and Chili in 1828, Bolivia about the same time, Buenos 
Ayres in 1816, and Monte Video recently. Since those peri¬ 
ods, no person is born or enters into those countries— a slave. 
Our Republic has now in all America only the empire of Bra¬ 
zil to keep her in countenance. Even that companion is ex¬ 
pected soon to leave us, and we will then stand entirely alone. 
We will then take the contempt of the world. There is a pub¬ 
lic opinion in Europe, before which slave holders and their 
abettors quail. As human beings, they cannot help it until 
they become so hardened as to say, with the apostate angel, 

“ Evil, be thou my good !” 

That opinion will soon be turned in one burning focus upon 
our country. England and France are acting in concert for 
vindicating the rights and soothing the sorrows of the colored 
man. Both countries have abolished all legal distinctions be¬ 
tween free white and colored men. Colored men sit on juries 
and in legislatures in the colonies of both. So they do in all 
South America. They also command armies, are educated 
at the universities, preach, practise law, medicine and the lib¬ 
eral and mechanic arts. But the most important sign of the 
times, is the evident determination of the British people to ex¬ 
tirpate slavery at once in their colonies. Will the southern 
planters hold out against this accumulation of light and experi¬ 
ence ? Will they go on in a tyrannous and bloody course, 
and risk the inevitable shock which will follow'? They would 
not think of it, if they did not rely upon our silence and co¬ 
operation. It is not reconcilable with the nature of man to 


* The following is a paragraph from the JYeio York Journal of Com¬ 
merce , of 1829: 

“ Colombia. The anxiety and efforts of the Colombian Government 
to re-instate an injured class in those rights which our Constitution 
calls inalienable, put to the blush the tardy and heartless of the Gov¬ 
ernment of the United States on this subject. As soon as the Republic 
had established her freedom, she took measures to emancipate the 
slaves. Revenues were appropriated. They began with the most wor¬ 
thy to be free. All the children born after a certain day were declared 
free. At this time the number is greatly reduced. In Malurin, Ven¬ 
ezuela, Oronoco and Tulia, containing nearly half of the population of 
Colombia, only 29,371 remain in bondage.” 

It is truly gratifying to observe the noble stand which one journal has 
recently taken. Its wealthy and benevolent proprietor, Mr. Tappan, 
is a host on the anti-slavery side. 



67 hayti. 67 

dare so much for so little, as without that reliance they would 
dare. 

Let us, then, speak to them like independent men, like real 
friends, and warn them to flee from the wrath to come. We 
hear a great deal about saving the souls of poor Africans. For 
my part, I am much more anxious about the souls of their 
masters. 

11 1 tell thee, churlish priest, 

My sister shall a ministering angel be, 

While thou liest howling.” 

If we express frankly and firmly our opinions to the South, 
they will give up their slaves. They will turn them into free 
laborers or tenants. The thing may be done with the stroke 
of a pen. Let them begin to do it. Let them make a sin¬ 
cere experiment, like Radzivil in Poland, and like Lafayette 
in Cayenne. To make an immediate beginning is all that I 
mean, or that our Society means, by “ immediate abolition.” 
Immediate inquiry, to be followed by action, as soon as inquiry 
has pointed out the way—these, and these only, are “ imme¬ 
diate abolition” in any rational sense. 

We are misrepresented and denounced, by men high in the 
world ; by men with titles before their names and behind their 
names, like heralds and troops to swell their state, and look 
down our humble association. But I do not fear them. If 
our cause be of God, he will put his everlasting arm beneath 
and bear it up. If it be not of God, and for the good of man, 
then let it fall. 

We are accused of wishing to produce a “ St. Domingo 
massacre.” This is repeated on all occasions. Our oppo¬ 
nents are wise to attack what they please to impute to us, 
rather than any thing we have done. Better proof of the in¬ 
nocence of our principles and actions need not be desired. 

But how was this affair of St. Domingo, which is made such 
a bugbear, to frighten the country from its propriety ? So far 
from being a case which makes against abolition, it will be 
found directly the other w'ay. 

The French abolished slavery at one blow throughout the 
republic in the year 1793. It was an article of their constitu¬ 
tion. Of course, the people of St. Domingo were free. They 
were peaceable, kind, orderly and industrious. They carried 
on plantations, whose owners and overseers were absent, per¬ 
fectly well; and, for nearly eight years, peace, contentment and 
felicity, reigned throughout the French portion of the island. 
In 1802, the expedition was sent out by Bonaparte to re¬ 
enslave them. That expedition was bloody and perfidious. 


68 


hayti. 


68 


The war against those colored men differed as much from al¬ 
lowed and civilized war, as the ordinary treatment of a free 
negro in the United States differs from that of a respectable 
.white. They kept no faith with them. They trapped their 
leader by treachery, and murdered him. At length the Hay- 
tien rose in his wrath, and truly the genius of fire could not 
revel in its flames more familiarly than he. Their fury swept 
over the island like a conflagration, and their weak-hearted 
enemies, the traitors to solemn leagues, were consumed from 
the surface of the glorious island. It is true, that the young 
and tender were not spared. But let white men endure four 
centuries of oppression, let them be blessed with the boon of 
liberty, let them hug it to their hearts and feel its warm and 
expansive influence; then let it be rudely snatched away, and 
daggers substituted in its place. Is it very certain that we, 
with all our boasted refinement and charity, should be meek 
and patient with the butchers ? 

Thanks be to God! Ilayti triumphed; single-handed and 
against the world, she triumphed. Against the hotness of 
fight and the coldness of derision, she has triumphed. After 
some vibration, her government has settled into regular and 
beneficent action. It now has the whole island. There is 
not a slave. It is said by witnesses, whom I credit, to be 
prosperous and happy* The imports from the island ’into the 
United States amount annually to about two millions of dol¬ 
lars. Although we have no commercial treaty with her, as we 
might have had long ago, on the most advantageous terms; 
although we have set our faces sternly against her independ¬ 
ent and equal rank among the nations of the earth, yet, not¬ 
withstanding this, and notwithstanding successive wars with 
two first rate powers, Ilayti still lives and flourishes. She has 
now a better ordered society, in spite of the base efforts of 
Europe and America to madden and destroy her, than Greece 
has, with the civilized world to aid her. 

Precious beyond expression to the colored man, is the ex¬ 
ample of Hayti and the character of her noble deliverer, 
Toussaint L’Ouverture. The white man’s blood ran not in 
his veins, but the milk of kindness was around his heart. So 
it was around the heart of Hayti, until cold perfidy congealed it. 

May she act worthy of her great destiny. In my view, she 
is now the depositary of the greatest trust of God to man. 
Philosophy and philanthropy strain their eyes towards her. 
Ethiopia stretches out her hands unto God for her. 

* See a full account of the present state of Hayti , in the London 
Anti-Slavery Reporter. 




APPENDIX. 


AFFIDAVIT OF ROBERT ROBERTS, OF BOSTON. 

An account of the kidnapping of James Hall, son of Jude Hall, Exeter, 
New Hampshire : 

James Hall was born in Exeter, New Hampshire, and, at the age of eigh¬ 
teen years, was kidnapped by a man named David Wedgewood, of Exeter, 
but now resides at Greenland. By him (D. VV.) he was taken, tied and car¬ 
ried to Newburyport jail, and the next morning was put on board of a vessel 
bound for New Orleans, and sold as a slave. The Captain of the vessel’s 
name was Isaac Stone. The vessel belonged to Johnson &-, of New¬ 

buryport. He was taken from his father’s house at Exeter, in the absence of 
his father, by D. W., who said that he owed him four dollars. His mother 
said that he was a minor, and forbid him from taking him. Regardless to 
what she said, he bound and carried him to Newburyport. He was seen, not 
long since, at New Orleans, by George Ashton, a colored man, from Exeter ; 
he said he was chained up in the calaboose or jail, at New Orleans, as a run¬ 
away j and, in the mean time, his master (a Frenchman, from Kentucky) 
came, and commanded him to be punished severely, and carried him back. 

His father was born at Exeter (N. FI.), and was a soldier during the old 
revolutionary war, under Gen. Poor. His mother was grand daughter of 
Esquire Rollins, of Stratham. She is now living, and will testify to all that is 
written here concerning her son, and more, if wished. 

Aaron, another son of Jude Hall, in 1807, was kidnapped by some villain 
at Providence, Rhode Island, and has not been heard of since. At first, he 
went from this city to Providence, in order to get ready for sea : he w r ent into 
a clothing store, and gave a due bill for a suit of sea clothes, which w'as twenty 
dollars 3 and, being unable to read or write, he made his cross for $200 instead 
of 20. And when he returned from sea, he started from Providence to carry 
the money to his father, and was overtaken in Roxbury (Mass.), on his way 
home, and carried back, sent to sea, and has not been heard of since. 

William, a third son, went to sea in the barque Hannibal, of Newbury¬ 
port. After arriving at the West Indies, was sold there as a slave ; and, after 
remaining in slavery ten years, by some means run away, and is now in Eng¬ 
land, a captain of a collier from Newcastle to London. About three years ago, 
his mother heard of him, the first time for upwards of twenty years. His father 
was a pensioner of the United States, having served faithfully eight years, and 
fought in most all the battles, beginning with the Bunker Hill. He was called 
a great soldier, and was known in New Hampshire, to the day of his death, by 
the name of “ Old Rock.” He w r as alive when James was first heard of in 
fdaveryq but he did not live to hear from William. Nobody has ever heard 
from Aaron. 

The above-named Jude Hall w'as my father-in-law, and my wife w r as lfis 
eldest child. I have often heard these facts from my mother-in-law', and oth¬ 
ers of the family; and I have made exertions to get information and give as¬ 
sistance to my brothers in their captivity, and so did my father; but was kept run¬ 
ning from one lawyer and judge to another, until he died without being able to 
help either of his sons. ROBT. ROBERTS. 

Suffolk, ss: Boston, Nov. 22 d, 1833. 

Then the above-named Robert Roberts personalty appeared and subscribed 
the foregoing statement, and made solemn oath that the same is true, accord¬ 
ing to the best of his knowledge and belief. 

Before me, DAVID L. CHILD, Justice of the Peac$ y 




70 


AFFIDAVIT OF JOSEPH THOMPSON. 

1, Joseph Thompson, of Poston, in the State of Massachusetts, aged thirty- 
four years, testily and say, that in the year eighteen hundred and twenty-nine 
I sailed from New York in the ship Milton, Captain \Y illiam B. Webb, lor 
Bourdeaux, and thence to New Orleans. The mate’s name was Charles Price 
Bulkley. At New Orleans, Captain Webb purchased a new vessel, called the 
Bingham, and pul the mate in command of her. I was transferred with the 
mate, on account of our having sailed together two years and upwards. Bulk- 
ley was directed in writing to pay the hands who went with him. There was 
due to me at that time, as steward, at the rate of $13 per month, the sum of 
$286 or 7. I asked Bulkley for the sum of $18, for my use at New Orleans. 
He w'as angry, and ordered me ashore. I went, taking my clothes. He charg¬ 
ed me with stealing, and put me in a calaboose. He then sold me to a man by 
the name of Turner, from the country. I refused to go. Fortunately, I was 
able to speak some French, and I had some old acquaintances at New Orleans, 
one a landlord named John Pouch, and the other named Caleb Bartlett, a 
merchant of New Orleans, son of the late Dr. Bartlett, of Charlestown, Massa¬ 
chusetts. This gentleman had sailed, when a boy, before the mast in a vessel 
of which I was steward, viz., the ship Persia, Captain Stephen Williams. By 
the kindness of those gentlemen, I was released ; whereupon Bulkley accused me 
of being a dangerous fellow’, and having a design to raise the slaves and mur¬ 
der the whites, and said that 1 was fitted for such an undertaking. The jailor 
was about to shackle me, when Messrs. Pouch and Bartlett came, in conse¬ 
quence of a message which I sent by the guard, and relieved me. If I had 
not had friends in New Orleans, or if I had had them, but could not have sent 
a message in French by the guard, I should not have been able to recover my 
liberty, and should, in all probability, have been in slavery at this time. 

While I was in prison, I saw William Johnson, whom I had known as a free 
man at Baltimore. He w'as taken up in the street the same day that I was. 
He was chained, and put to w ork on the levee. He had a shackle round his 
right ankle, and a chain running from that to his waist, and attached to a belt 
round his body. I saw him whipped dreadfully with a cow hide, because he. did 
not walk faster. I left him in that situation, and suppose that he is still a slave, 
as, in the usual course, he would be sold into the country in twenty days. In 
the calaboose there were nine other colored men, who were freemen. Three 
of them I had known as stewards on board different vessels. Two of them 
belonged to Boston, one belonged to Portland, (and his namewas John Powar), 
and three belonged to New York, one of whom had a w-ife and four children 
there. All these, after twenty days, were to be sold for slaves. I suppose 
they must be in slavery now. They urged me to go and intercede for them. 
I did go to the landlord, Pouch, and asked him to help them, and he did all 
that he could, but it was in vain. One of the persons whom I left in the cala¬ 
boose, was steward of a vessel lying alongside the levee. I went on board, 
and inquired for the Captain, as respectfully as I could. The mate said, “ Cap¬ 
tain is not here. What do you w'ant ?” I answered, “The steward wants 
him, for God's sake, to send him his protection, or to come up and see him in 
prison.” The mate then said, more rough than before, “ Clear out, you d—d 
niggur.” 1 then went away, and had to run to get out of the way. The cala¬ 
boose is filthy enough to poison a hog. 

There is a continual stream of free colored men from Boston, New York, 
Philadelphia, and other seaports of the United States, passing through this cala¬ 
boose into slavery in the country. 

While I was at New Orleans at this time, a poor woman, a slave, for slapping 
her master’s child a little, was whipped twenty-five lashes a day, three days run¬ 
ning. On the third day, she jumped from the levee and drowned herself. I 
saw her body after some colored women had drawn it out and covered it with 
a shawl. She was awfully cut on the back, and the wounds were gaping. 

his 

JOSEPH * THOMPSON, 

mark. 

Suffolk, ss: Boston, Nov. 20, 1833. 

Subscribed and sworn, before me, 

DAVID L, CHILD, Justice of the Peace , 


71 


AFFIDAVIT OF JAMES G. BARBADOES. 

About twenty-two years ago, Matthew Earl, the son of Hamlet Earl, about 
fourteen years old, was kidnapped on board of a vessel, and locked up in the 
cabin; but his cries alarmed the bystanders, and gentlemen of humanity in¬ 
formed his parents, and, with exertion, with the assistance of Mr. Brimmer, a 
very gentleman, the boy was released. * 

Mrs. Phillis Lewis’s son was kidnapped by a man on board of a vessel, and 
carried to Nantucket. Information being immediately sent to the Friends, on 
the vessel’s arrival there, she was searched by them, and the boy found secret¬ 
ed on board of her, and sent back to his mother. 

Peter Smith was kidnapped, in New Orleans, and imprisoned, with the intent 
to be sold for a slave ; but by information being given to his friends, and to Mr. 
Ludlow, a navy officer, he promptly interceded, and he was released, and sent 
home to his wife. 

Daniel Williams was kidnapped in Norfolk, and imprisoned, and to be sold 
fora slave. Letters being sent to his parents stating the facts, his parents pre¬ 
sented them to the Governor, and he demanded him immediately, and obtain¬ 
ed him. 

About eighteen years ago, Robert H. Barbadoes was kidnapped in New 
Orleans, imprisoned, handcuffed and chained, for about five months or longer, 
and deprived every way of communicating his situation to his parents. His 
protection was taken from him, and torn up. He was often severely flogged, to 
be made submissive, and deny that he was free born. He was unluckily caught 
with a letter wrote with a stick, and with the blood drawn from his own veins, 
for the purpose of communicating to his father his situation 3 but this project 
failed, for the letter was torn away from him and destroyed, and he very severe¬ 
ly flogged. He then lost most every hope 5 but at length the above Peter Smith 
was kidnapped again in this garden of paradise of freedom, and being lodged 
in the same cell with him, he communicated to Smith the particulars of his suf¬ 
ferings. At the examination of Smith, he was found to have free papers, signed 
by the Governor; inconsequence of which, he was set at liberty. He then 
wrote to Barbadoes’ parents, and likewise arrived in Boston as soon as the let¬ 
ter. Free papers were immediately obtained, and signed by his father and 

Mrs. Mary Turel, Mr.-Giles, and Mr. Thomas Clark, town clerk ; and 

by the Governor of this State, demanding him without delay. He was return¬ 
ed to his native town, Boston, where all these other persons belonged. The 
above wrote by JAMES G. BARBADOES. 

Testified by him and others of the connexions. 

Suffolk, ss : Boston, Nov. 20, 1833. 

Subscribed and sworn, before me, 

DAVID L. CHILD, Justice of the Peace. 


Extract from Mrs. Child's Appeal. 

“ In Philadelphia, though remote from a slave market, it has been ascertain¬ 
ed that more than thirty free persons of color, were stolen and carried off with¬ 
in two years. Stroud says : 1 Five of these have been restored to their friends, 
by the interposition of humane gentlemen, though not without great expense 
and difficulty. The others are still in bondage; and, if rescued at all, it must 
be by sending white witnesses a journey of more than a thousand miles.’ ” P. G4. 

Extract from Torrey’s Portraiture of Domestic Slavery in the United States. 

“ To enumerate all the horrid and aggravating instances of men-stealing, 
which are known to have occurred in the State of Delaware, within the recol¬ 
lection of many of the citizens of that State, would require a volume. In many 



cases, whole families of free colored people have been attacked in the night, 
beaten nearlij to death with clubs, gagged and bound, and dragged into distant 
and hopeless captivity and slavery, leaving no traces behind, except the blood 
from their wounds. 

“ During the last winter, since the seizure of the woman and infant, as related 
above, the house of a free black family was broken open, and its defenceless 
inhabitants treated in the manner just mentioned, except that the mother es¬ 
caped from their merciless grasp, while on their way to the State of Maryland. 
The plunderers, of whom there were nearly half a dozen, conveyed their prey 
upon horses 3 and the woman being placed on one of the horses, behind, im¬ 
proved an opportunity, as they were passing a house, and sprang off; and not 
daring to pursue her, they proceeded on, leaving her youngest child a little far¬ 
ther along by the side of the road, in expectation, it is supposed, that its cries 
would attract the mother} but she prudently waited until morning, and recov¬ 
ered it again in safety. 

“ I consider myself more fully warranted in particularising this fact, from the 
circumstances of having been at Newcastle at the time that the woman was 
brought with her child, before the grand jury, for examination 3 and of having 
seen several of the persons against whom bills of indictment were found, on 
the charge of being engaged in the perpetration of the outrage; and also, that 
one or two of them were the same who were accused of assisting in seizing and 
carrying off another woman and child, whom 1 discovered at Washington. The 
ingenuity and stratagems employed by kidnappers, in effecting their designs, 
are such as to prove, that the most consummate cunning is no evidence of wis¬ 
dom or moral purit} 7 , nor incompatible with the most consummate villany. A 
monster, in human shape, was detected, in the city of Philadelphia, pursuing 
the occupation of courting and marrying mulatto women, and selling them as 
slaves. In his last attempt of this kind, the fact having come to the knowledge 
of the African population of this city, a mob was immediately collected, and he 
was only saved from being torn in atoms, by being deposited in the citv prison. 
They have lately invented a method of attaining their objects, through the in¬ 
strumentality of the laws : Having selected a suitable free colored person, to 
make a pitch upon, the conjuring kidnapper employs a confederate, to ascer¬ 
tain the distinguishing marks of his body, and then claims and obtains him as 
a slave, before a magistrate, by describing those marks, and proving the truth 
of his assertions by his well-instructed accomplice. 

u From the best information that 1 have had opportunities to collect, in travel¬ 
ling by various routes through the States of Delaware and Maryland, and from 
statements of an ingenuous trader exclusively (as I believe) in laicful slaves, 
I am fully convinced that there are, at this time, within the jurisdiction of the 
United States, several thousands of legally free people of color, toiling under 
the yoke of involuntary servitude, and transmitting the same fate to their pos¬ 
terity ! If the probability of this fact could be authenticated to the recognition 
of the Congress of the United States, it is presumed that its members, as 
agents of the Constitution, and guardians of the public liberty, w 7 ould, without 
hesitation, devise means for the restoration of those unhappy victims of vio¬ 
lence and avarice, to their freedom and constitutional personal rights. This is 
a work, both from its nature and magnitude, impracticable to individuals or 
benevolent societies to accomplish} besides, it is perfectly a national business, 
and claims national interference, equally with the captivity of our sailors in 
Algiers.” Pp. 57-58. 














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